2011 was a very good year for the Mountain Communities Fire Safe Council. The money came late for our grant to help homeowners with abatement but we were able to quickly put the money to use over the summer. The quality of our newsletter is good and so are our membership numbers. New people joined…
In addition to a breathtaking mountain and an excellent Fire Safe Council, I am grateful for extremely competent fire professionals who make it possible for us all to live here. We are very fortunate to have chiefs who are fine leaders. I don’t have the background to assess their abilities as a peer would, since…
What will happen to federal support for homeowner fire abatement? Judging from the words of U.S. Forest Service’s Director of Fire and Aviation Management Tom Harbour at a fire prevention conference last week, we should not expect much in the future. Last week, a bunch of us from the Mountain Communities Fire Safe Council traveled…
Texas has had a terrible fire season. The state has been in a multi-year draught, and this year set a record for low rainfall. Another unwanted record was in heat, in which Texas had the highest average daily temperature through the summer of any state ever recorded. This summer was the hottest and driest Texas…
Town Crier readers will have noticed that the State Board of Forestry ruled on Aug. 22 that the Legislature approved fire fee was to be no more than $90, and that various discounts would apply. Residents who pay a local fire district fee would be given a $45 discount, and residents who could show a…
The most interesting news of the month regarding the focus of this column is the lesson of the Wallow Fire that burned earlier this summer in Eastern Arizona. Idyllwild Fire Protection District Chief Norm Walker was on the fire and is uniquely qualified to speak about it, and to our benefit he will address it…
A grantor recently asked us for our strategic plan. Since we have never done a formal strategic plan, we decided this was a good time to go through the process and create a useful one (i.e., one that does not sit on the shelf). We decided to work on the plan this summer and fall….
