09/24/2014
SHASTA COUNTY AUTHORIZES COMMUNITY WILDFIRE PROTECTION PLAN UPDATES AND YOUR INPUT IS NEEDED!
Your Community Wildfire Protection Plan will be updated this year. If you live in the unincorporated area of Shasta County, and live in the wildland – urban interface, you and your neighbors may be living in a fuel hazard area. What is the wildland – urban interface or WUI? The WUI is that area where the landscape transitions from primarily wildland like trees, brush or grass, to homes with yards, automobiles, and lawn mowers.
Look around your neighborhood. If you feel your neighborhood has a fuel hazard problem, contact your neighbors and see if most of them agree with you. If most of your neighbors agree you have a potential fuels reduction project, you need to take steps to get your project recorded in your Community Wildfire Protection Plan or CWPP. This is an important step because most funding sources require a fuel reduction project be recognized in a CWPP before it will qualify for funding.
A local CWPP addresses issues such as defining the WUI, wildfire response, fuel hazard mitigation, community preparedness, or structure protection, or all five concerns. Local CWPP’s were last updated in 2010, and the WUI has changed in many areas of the county in the last five years.
The emphasis of a CWPP is on the community. That’s why it is so important to talk to your neighbors and get support of most of the neighborhood for a project before you request it be added to the CWPP.
If you and your neighbors agree you have a potential fuel reduction project, contact Jack Bramhall at Western Shasta Resource Conservation District via phone at 530.365.7332 Ext. 213, or via email at [email protected]. He is the person coordinating the updates to the CWPP’s.
Funding for updating the Community Wildfire Protection Plans is provided by a grant from the Shasta County Board of Supervisors using Title III funds from the Aid to Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act of 2005.
