A meeting last week of interested parties on the Goldspotted oak borer provides a good moment to take stock of where we are in relation to this destructive pest. The GSOB is an invasive insect brought to San Diego County around 2004 and since then has devastated the oak trees of many San Diego communities….
I have often been struck by the similarities between fire protection — prevention and suppression — and public health. Both fields are tasked with preventing or containing catastrophes — wildfires and epidemics — that can overwhelm the normal protections of daily life. Both deal with an enemy that is a part of the natural world…
Seventy-six is an attractive number, especially in the United States. It brings up the Declaration of Independence (1776), or perhaps the 76 trombones Professor Harold Hill wanted the town folk to imagine in “The Music Man.” But for us at the Fire Safe Council, 76 refers to the current number of houses that have been…
A fairly new term in wildfire policy is “Fire Adapted Communities.” Important fire organizations have placed a new emphasis on this concept over the last few years and I think it leads us all in the right direction regarding the challenge of wildfire. To begin with, by referring to adaptation, the term leads us to…
We at the Fire Safe Council were very happy with the Town Hall meeting last week. The turnout was great and the room was packed. Best of all was the intelligent and focused discussion between the fire chiefs who comprised the panel and residents who attended. The questions and comments were smart, and the chiefs…
We had a wonderful Goldspotted oak borer kick-off lunch this past Friday. The Fire Safe Council, with fantastic (and delicious) help from the Pine Cove Water District, sponsored a beautiful outdoor lunch behind the Mountain Resource Center to thank the volunteers who search the community for trees the Goldspotted oak borer infects. In addition to…
We had really bad luck in scheduling our Fire Prevention Muster, which just happened to fall on the only day in months with cold and wet weather. The bad weather forecasts for Saturday, April 26, were pretty firm by Wednesday, April 23, but Executive Director Edwina Scott’s final check was with U.S. Forest Service Division…
On Saturday, April 26, the public is invited to a festive and informative gathering in Idyllwild of people connected to fire prevention and firefighting. At no admission charge, we hope everyone will come and enjoy the activities. The Fire Safety Muster is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Idyllwild Community Center site in…
“Facts are stubborn things,” as John Adams said, and a very stubborn thing over the last two decades has been how much we have spent on putting out forest fires. Not surprisingly, wildfire protection costs have risen substantially. A recent paper from Headwaters Economics puts the federal annual-average fire suppression cost during the 1990s at…
Like a lot of people, I was fascinated by the almost complete shutdown of Atlanta from 2.3 inches of snow last week. It was a failure of government to manage a threat to public safety, which cost millions of dollars and some people their lives. But the actors were not irresponsible people. They thought they…
