Wednesday, May 6, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
7
Preparedness event readies folks for wildfire season
By Jodi Schneider McNamee
Correspondent
S a t u r d a y, M a y 2
w a s N a t i o n a l Wi l d f i r e
Preparedness Day. To mark
the occasion, the Sisters-
Camp Sherman Fire District
hosted the second annual
Sisters community event to
help residents learn how to
make their homes and neigh-
borhoods safer from wildfire.
From Sisters Country
fire history to the basics of
defensible space, there were
tips, tools, and teachings that
everyone could use to help
raise wildfire awareness and
bring neighbors together to
work on projects to protect
homes.
Assistant fire manage-
ment officer Jinny Reed from
the Sisters Ranger District
kicked off the program with
a general discussion on the
wildfire outlook in Sisters
Country for this year:
“What I found to be
most important during my
fire management career in
Central Oregon is that a
strong community is very
important when you’re deal-
ing with a disaster such as
wildfire. The different orga-
nizations are here to sup-
port you. It’s interagency
cooperation that helps pro-
tect you and your property.
We have had several years
of dry winters and our snow
pack has been declining for
the past 10 years, and now
it’s very extreme. Part of
our greatest risk for our fire
district is the fires that start
in the National Forests from
lighting strikes. And they
work their way down into our
communities. So when we
don’t have the normal snow-
pack, and when fuels are a
month or two ahead of sched-
ule, then when we get light-
ning we have a greater risk of
larger fires occurring.”
A PowerPoint presenta-
tion pointed out that Sisters
Country has been having
above-average temperatures,
especially this year. These
conditions may continue
throughout the summer.
“The fuels in the forest
are dryer than normal, and
what we are seeing in April
is common for August,” said
Reed.
Sisters Fire Manager
Ben Duda from Oregon
Department of Forestry
(ODF) pointed out that the
Oregon Forestland-Urban
Interface Fire Protection Act,
often referred to as Senate
Bill 360, enlists the aid of
property owners toward the
goal of turning fire-vulnera-
ble urban and suburban prop-
erties into less-volatile zones
where firefighters may more
safely and effectively defend
homes from wildfires.
“Basically it’s a law that
requires homeowners to do
some simple things around
their home to create defen-
sible space. It’s all about
educating the public and
teaching you what you can
do for yourselves to protect
your own homes,” Duda said.
“It’s not about creating a dirt
donut around your house,
you can still have natural
landscaping, a dry landscap-
ing. What sets most houses
on fire is the embers, ember
showers. There are things
around your house that you
can do to protect your home
and by doing that it makes
it safer for the firefighters to
protect your home.”
The mission of ODF pri-
marily is for protection of
private lands within our dis-
trict, which includes all of
Sisters Country.
“We fill in the gap
between the Forest Service
and the rural fire department;
we bolster the initial attack,”
said Duda.
After giving a brief fire
history of Sisters Country,
Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire
District Chief Roger Johnson
explained to the public what
the “2014 Greater Sisters
Country Community Wildfire
Protection Plan” is all about.
“The Community Wildfire
Protection Plan is essentially
part of our planning tool, it
was all of our agency part-
ners that came together,
the Forest Service, ODF,
the City of Sisters, the fire
department, the county com-
missioners, and the county
forester,” Johnson said. “We
all got together and met over
the course of months and we
rated all of the seven commu-
nities around Sisters Country.
We looked at the vegetation,
we looked at the fire history,
and we looked at the infra-
structure. We then looked at
how many exits the commu-
nities have, and what risks
the infrastructures have, and
are there schools there and
how many people live in that
area. We developed this plan
that rates every community
in this region based on cumu-
lative risk, so it’s a really
neat tool for you to look at
and see what community that
you live in, and ask how high
is my risk? And what makes
it such a high risk?
“What it does for us is it
helps us prioritize fuel reduc-
tion work and things like that
to make your community
safer. We are really proud
about our partnerships within
the region. It’s great to have
the Forest Service and ODF
and our fire department all
based in the same area and
working under one command
system. It’s an integrative
response, and that’s what it
takes to be effective in the
region.”
Download Sisters Country
C o m m u n i t y Wi l d f i r e
Protection Plan online at
www.sistersfire.com.
Sisters Fire Safety
Manager Gary Marshall dis-
cussed how homeowners can
maximize their fire protec-
tion around their houses.
“We have four Firewise
communities in Sisters right
now and are working on
another one in Crossroads.
Our goal is to reach out and
work with the neighborhood
associations and create addi-
tional Firewise communities
within the district. There are
steps to take to get defensible
space around your home. It’s
the little things that hom-
eowners can do on their
property that can give them
protection.”
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