Community Wildfire Preparedness Workshop

May 23, 2023

Diane Hopkinson

I attended the Community Wildfire Preparedness Workshop. It was very well attended to learn about being prepared for wildfires. There were 13 speakers who informed the audience on their respective programs and responsibilities. A brief synopsis follows:

1. Mike Vollmer, Executive Director of TCRP, spoke on learning to live in balance with fire, both good and bad. Eight of the ten largest fires have happened in the last six years. 
2. David Shew, Fire Protection Association, spoke on how to become a Firewise Community at WWW.firewise.org. On April 12th Insurance Companies had to submit updated rate packages. Being a Firewise Community will be recognized by most insurance companies, with USAA being the first.
3. Mike Schwartz, our Fire Chief when CW became Firewise,  spoke on being prepared with a plan and go bags before the mandatory evacuation is declared. The best time to leave is at a warning. This is especially important when there are few roads to escape on with lots of people, such as we have in Lake Tahoe.
4. Dayna Grub and Kathleen Stephens, from the Agate Bay Community, spoke on how their community became Firewise. They spoke of issues dealing with neighbors who ignore the need to clear property. Mike Morgan from Talmont in Sunnyside spoke on how to create defensible space using the free programs offered for inspection and chipping: www.ntfd.net
5. Cheyanne Neufer, from TRCD, spoke about the Community Wildfire Protection Plan that is updated every five years and is going digital. This plan is needed to apply for grants.
6. April Shackelford, who organized this workshop and is our Forest Fuel Manager, spoke on the increased requests for chipping. There will be new software coming to request free chipping. They are happy to come to any of our community-cleanup days if requested.
7. Brent Moore, from the Nevada Division of State Lands, spoke on a new program to treat state owned and neighboring lots.
8. Jason Pollard, from the Tahoe Conservancy, spoke on treating their areas. www.tahoe.ca.gov is their website. The Agate Bay residents were concerned that trees had been marked several years ago but nothing had ever been done to remove them, and would it be okay if they did it? The answer was NO!
9. Travis Buckelew and Kenny Heald, from the US Forest Service, spoke of the ongoing logging near power lines. They gave us the number for the Hazard Tree Hotline to remove trees found on US Forest land: 1-530-543-2759.
10. Sgt. Ty Conners, with Placer County Sheriffs, spoke on their responsibilities to coordinate evacuation. You can register phones at placeralert.org or by calling 211. This number also has Placer County information on several resources from disaster to suicide prevention. He stressed the need for people to heed the warnings and to not ignore orders by deciding not to evacuate.
11. Jon Jochem, from the Community Emergency Response team (CERT), spoke about this volunteer group who train members to assist emergency responders in times of need. They are sponsored by North Tahoe Fire. He showed a trail cam video of a home in the Caldor fire that was very powerful. He can be reached at jonjochem@gmail.com or 1-916-767-2908 to volunteer.
12. Wendy Jones, from Tahoe Paws, spoke about their community animal response team who are all volunteers who help organize evacuation shelters for pets and livestock: www.tahoepaws.org
13. Anne Rarick, from Connecting Point & Tuckee COAD, spoke about the resources available by calling 211. You can also text your zip code to 898 to get information for your area. They received over 200 calls per day during this last winter. 

The biggest take away from attending was how much is being done to be proactive instead of reactive when wildfires occur by all our Community and Government Agencies. I am also very grateful to our HOA for being the first community in the Tahoe Basin to become a Firewise Community.