Lessons learned from the Waldo Canyon Fire

Mitigate! Mitigate! Mitigate!

The time to start your home mitigation project is now. Don't wait for the next wildfire.

The Denver Post just published an article on the results of Colorado Springs mitigation initiatives. You can read it at:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_21065 ... ernational

Or follow the link on the Elk Creek FaceBook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ElkCreekFireDepartment

Thanks for the link.

Good to see them being realistic in assessment. You can do all the right things and still lose your home if the fire is intense enough. But it makes sense to mitigate and raise the odds of surviving.

The hardest part is getting neighbors to cooperate. The owner where I stay has mitigated all around the house and further down since they are on a slope. They have also made a fire break next to the fence line of two properties that had/have children in the hopes fire might stop there. Unfortunately the neighbors themselves have lots of trees, many right next to their home. So I guess instead of making a fire break for their neighbors along the fence line it may be a fire break for the owners since the neighbors aren't inclined to thin?

We have mitigated around my mom's home who lives only a couple of miles away. And some, but not all of her neighbors have around their homes. But most are on larger parcels and the rest of it hasn't been thinned. Nor has the national forest which is next door. Knowing that that isn't likely to happen we are now working on either side of the private road that the owners use cutting back bushes, removing ladder fuels from big trees and thinning smaller ones to make it easier to exit in case of fire.

So all well and good. When they finally make it to a public road there are many trees on the right of way that need to be thinned. It seems we could use the cooperation of the county/road and bridge to assist the process.

You can also find information locally at [url=http://www.disastersupportvolunteers.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;]www.disastersupportvolunteers.com[/url]

Disaster Support Volunteers provides a broad range of information and opportunities for those who'd like to get involved in helping the community. Thank you for your service DSV!

Thanks Becky for the reminder of DSV.

Also read in The Flume this week about the work done in Deer Creek Valley Ranchos and now KZ Ranch working on it. I am sure there will still be plenty of trees left when 400-500 are removed from the 40 acre area. Sometimes hard to fathom that that many need to be removed to have healthy trees and forest. Look how many bushes and plants and flowers will come back for the deer and elk and other wildlife.

Not surprising to see the headline that 74% of Park County residents live in high-risk fire danger areas.

74 percent of Park County residents live in high-risk fire danger area
http://www.theflume.com/news/first_five ... f6878.html