Editor’s Note: FAC Net offers small micro-grants to FAC Net affiliate members. This year, five members were chosen to receive awards to help advance local FAC work in CO, UT, CA, and VA. This is the third round of Opportunity Fund awards that FAC Net has offered. Read a recap of round two projects here. Recipients of the funds over the years have included Fire Departments, HOAs, Fire Safe Councils, non-profits, county agencies and more. Funding from a private foundation that wishes to remain nameless and the United States Forest Service make this opportunity fund possible.
Wildfire practitioners are often piecing together grants and other funding sources to make one whole project or program feasible. While small awards, these opportunity funds offered by FAC Net (up to $3,000) have the goal of helping to push projects over the finish line, fill in gaps in funding, and help push forward good mitigation, preparedness and recovery work, on the ground, in communities. FAC Net members proposed some great projects this year and the award recipients were able to accomplish some great outcomes. Read on to celebrate the wins of the five awardees below, and drop them a “congratulations” in the comments!
Fuels Reduction in Colorado and Virginia
Genesee Fire & Rescue (CO)
“Our slash drop-off project encouraged resident engagement. Participating homeowners were able to reduce the fuels on their properties and lower wildfire risk. The project also helped to strengthen partnerships between the fire department, HOAs, open space, and residents.”
-Dorie Dalton
The opportunity fund enabled Genesee Fire Rescue to host a slash drop-off event for their entire district. The event encouraged residents to work together and coordinate gathering, loading, and dropping off slash from their parcels. The residents helped unload and organize the slash at the event site.
Credit: Dorie Dalton, Genesee Fire Rescue
Dorie Dalton, award recipient, said about the project, “The biggest surprise in taking on this project was the amount of slash that was dropped off. Trying to estimate the amount of slash to plan for before the event was difficult. Originally, we planned on using two 30-yard roll-offs and ended up filling three 30-yard roll-offs! Residents have been inquiring about when the next slash drop-off is scheduled so we consider that a success.”
An additional perk of the project was that community participants saved roughly 19.5 miles per person of driving to nearest Jefferson County slash collection site in Morrison, CO. “While I don’t have an exact count, based on volunteer estimates, there was over 500 miles of driving saved.”
Credit: Dorie Dalton, Genesee Fire Rescue
Pulaski County Emergency Management (VA)*
This opportunity fund helped move forward cross-boundaries fuels treatment projects in Pulaski County, VA. Sixty-five acres were treated in partnership with the US forest Service, the Town of Pulaski, New River Highlands RC&D, and AmeriCorps. These projects helped provide direct mitigation and fuels reduction for two communities, 12 homes, a recreation area and municipal watershed while moving forward cross-boundaries project goals.
Brad Wright, award recipient, said, “This funding allowed for our locality to fund the personnel to assist with implementing cross-boundaries projects by building the local capacity for the project. It was well received by the community and illuminates just how much more capacity and funding is needed to continue making progress on our objectives.” It was truly a collaborative effort with over 560 hours provided by AmeriCorps volunteers, over $10,000 in local government funding, and many partners engaged.
*Editor’s Note: since the opportunity fund project closed, Pulaski County OEM has been added as a core member to FAC Net.
Credit: Brad Wright, Pulaski County Office of Emergency Management
Credit: Brad Wright, Pulaski County Office of Emergency Management
Falls Creek Ranch HOA, CO
This opportunity fund helped the Falls Creek Ranch HOA supply tools and materials for volunteer work days that benefited the whole community. These work days helped remove hazardous fuels from a common area and along their main evacuation road for about 3 acres in total of treatments and over 20 hours of volunteer labor. Another volunteer work day is already planned to continue the work.
Paulette Church, award recipient, reported that common areas in their community have often been overlooked by grant funding sources but that this critical common area provides access to water supply and other important access areas in their HOA. Paulette considered this project a success and notes that the impact will linger with many more project days to come.
Credit: Paulette Church, Falls Creek Ranch HOA
Community and Youth Engagement in CA and UT
Summit County (UT)
Summit County hosed three events and sponsored nine community gatherings with their opportunity fund award. The first was a public open house to educate residents of Weber Canyon about wildfire risk, their resilient forests and watershed protection projects, and introduce the fire adapted communities philosophy. The second was a technical committee meeting with local wildfire professionals to collect high-risk areas, ingress/egress concerns and cross-boundary treatment areas. The last workshop was a partitioners workshop focusing on collaboration and funding opportunities. The remainder of the events were the Summit County Community “Living with Wildfire” series (two in Spanish) across the county.
Credit: Jessica Kirby, Summit County, Utah
Award recipient, Jessica Kirby, said about the project, “This grant allowed my public outreach events to be special. It provided the opportunity to “break bread” with the community, print marketing materials that I can use over and over again and bought supplies that will continue to support my open lands program far beyond the events we just held.”
Jessica also learned that it is really hard to engage a busy public that is overwhelmed. She noted that strong partnerships are key to getting the word out and joining forces on events so as not to flood your target audience with too much information. All in all they reached around 600 people with the series.
Credit: Jessica Kirby, Summit County, Utah
Kern Fire Safe Council (CA)
Kern Fire Safe Council held a pilot classroom and youth engagement project in part funded through this opportunity fund. Students were sent home with a homework assignment to start a disaster plan and create an emergency contact list with their families (which the teachers helped them get started). In conjunction with another grant that helped KFSC distribute preparedness bags, 188 households in Kern County’s high fire risk communities are now further along in disaster preparedness and are more educated about human behaviors that increase risk of wildfires.
Award recipient, Peggy Hoyt-Voelker, said, “This funding allowed Kern Fire Safe Council to create and implement a pilot Ready Set Go and fire ecology/wildfire education class in three Kern County wildland-urban interface schools. The pilot was very well received by the schools, students, and with our partners Kern Fire Department, CA State Parks and US Forest Service.”
Credit: Peggy Hoyt-Voelker, Kern Fire Safe Council
Peggy reported that feedback from the students, teachers, Kern County Fire Department and US Forest Service was very positive. Kern FSC plans to expand their school program in 2023 and says that Kern County FD and their USFS partners both will be joining them when we expand the program to other schools.
“I learned how underserved our children are when it comes to disaster preparedness and wildfire education,” says Peggy.
Credit: Peggy Hoyt-Voelker, Kern Fire Safe Council
One challenged they faced was with a virtual component of the program. Peggy learned that keeping 5th graders engaged virtually was more difficult than they anticipated. But, they learned from their attempts and will continue to expand on their virtual programming. Peggy reports they are also combining the recordings into one webinar and will be posting it on their website and Facebook once it’s complete so other students and teachers can listen to the information.
Many thanks to our FAC Net Affiliate Members for their contributions. Stay tuned on our blog for more stories of fire adaptation work happening on the ground!
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