Firewise Is Here

Have you noticed during your clean up activites how the trash accumulates in all that dead grass and brush? That same grass and brush coming up through the snow is very flammable and will carry a wildfire far and wide in just the slightest wind. It indicates that wildfire season is very near! Ground fires support crown fires in our very flammable Black Spruce. Our community of Meadow Lakes sits in one of the largest Black Spruce forests on the planet. While many long time residents realize the extreme flammability of these trees, many people new to the area or state do not. Wildfire driven by wind has the potential to take our not just homes, but subdivisions and entire communites.

How do you protect yourself? First you have to understand where you are at risk. Black spruce trees close to the house, tall grass and brush from the trees to the house, firewood still stacked against your home, gasoline and gas using machines under the deck or against the house, and shake shingle roofs are all possible risk factors. There are many more.

To discover what your risk factors are, you can get help at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Department of Emergency Services Wildfire Mitgation/Firewise office. Staff make free house calls all across the borough to help identify the risks around a home. After such a "home visit" staff can determine if you have black spruce or beettle killled spruce which might qualify for their Cost Share Program. This program uses contractors to cut down and remove those flammable volatile wildfire fuels at minimal cost to the homeowner.

In addition to home visits and identifying risks, staff help subdivisions and communities become Firewise Communities. The national Firewise Communities program is a multi-agency effort designed to reach beyond the fire service by involving homeowners, community leaders, planners, developers, and others in the effort to protect people, property, and natural resources from the risk of wildland fire - before a fire starts. The Firewise Communities approach emphasizes community responsibility for planning in the design of a safe community, as well as effective emergency response, and individual responsibility for safer home construction and design, landscaping, and maintenance.

The national Firewise Communities program is intended to serve as a resource for agencies, tribes, organizations, fire departments, and communities across the U.S. who are working toward a common goal: reduce loss of lives, property, and resources to wildland fire by building and maintaining communities in a way that is compatible with our natural surroundings.

Part of becoming a Firewise Community is creating a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). A borough-wide plan was adopted in December of 2007. It is hoped that more detailed CWPPs in each of the 21 communites within the borough will be created in the future. These plans will help identify widlfire fuel reduction projects and other activities can be done to minimze the risk of wildfires, helping to protect people and their homes. Having a CWPP in place can allow for more grant funding to flow into a community or fire department.

It is important for residents across the borough to realize that in a large catastrophic wildfire such as Big Lake's Miller's Reach fire of 1996, where 53 square miles and over 400 structures burned, that the firefighting resources will be stretched extremely thin. With over 82,000 people in the Borough, there will NOT be a fire engine in every driveway during a wildfire. Thus, it can not be stressed enough that residents and homeowners must take personal responsibility do what they can to protect their homes. More information can be found at www.firewise.org Local information can be found on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough website ww1.matsugov.us/des then click on the Firewise link on the left. For help by phone about Firewise, Cost Share, and CWPPs, contact Michele Abé at 373-8823.