14 Spring 2017 Applegater
Cabin fever: Stir-crazy or think tank?
BY SANDY SHAFFER
A full week of being snowbound
finally started getting to me. Never
mind that hubby had tried going to
town earlier in the week and got the car
stuck in well over a foot of snow on our
driveway. We’d received almost an inch
of rain, the snow was melting, and the
temps were up, so I took off to get some
errands done.
After creeping down our hill and
skidding across our bridge, I breathed
a huge sigh of relief as I turned onto
a plowed and rocked road. Moving
towards Buncom and the Little Applegate
River, I could hear the river well before
I got there. Feeder streams flowing
across roads, flooded pasture, debris
everywhere, and it was still raining.
Would our local rivers flood, I wondered?
I barely made it back home
safely—got a little too close to the
inside of a curve on the driveway and
hubby had to come down and dig me
out. On the computer I had some emails
from neighbors who were monitoring
and comparing the Little Applegate’s
rising waters at various locations. And the
fire chief called me to talk about possible
breaching along the main Applegate
River later that night. He’d been working
with both Jackson and Josephine County
Emergency Services departments, the
Red Cross, the state’s Department of
Transportation, and the Army Corps of
Engineers to be ready to set up shelters
if we did see some flooding of homes
that night.
To m e t h i s i s w h a t t h e
Applegate is all about: people
working together to address issues
and get things done—across property
boundaries and across jurisdictions. And
hasn’t this been the way of America—
people working together for a better
future—ever since our country was
formed?
Because of our checkerboard
landownership pattern, we here in
southwest Oregon have had to work
together with our neighbors to accomplish
successful management goals. We set
the trend out of local necessity, but
the concept has gone national, with
collaborative groups all across the
country working together on local land-
management issues.
Burn reminder
Before burning outdoors any time of year, check with your fire
district to make sure that day is an official burn day and
not a NO burn day. No illegal burning!
Jackson County • 541-776-7007
Josephine County • 541-476-9663 (Press 3)
And it seems to me that the next
steps of collaborative work were a natural
also—to plan and work together during
all natural disasters, not just wildfires.
We now have CERT teams
(Community Emergency Response
Teams) popping up in many communities.
We have detailed emergency evacuation
plans for families via the Ready, Set, Go!
program, as well as documents telling us
what to include in family emergency kits
in case power and other services are cut
off for extended lengths of time.
We have automatic Citizen Alert
systems in both of our counties, whereby
all affected families receive emergency
information in a timely manner so that
we can appropriately react at the family
level. We Applegaters also have developed
many “telephone trees” to be able to alert
neighbors to an emergency situation in
our immediate area.
And of course much has been done
to address wildfire risks in southwest
Oregon, with several programs such as
Firewise and Fire-Adapted Communities
developed to guide homeowners in
fire-prone areas (the Applegate) to
work together to make their homes and
neighborhoods fire-resilient. While these
are now national programs, they are still
very applicable to our rural settings,
especially right now!
A decade ago over 90 percent of the
Applegate’s residents had “defensible
space” around their homes. But we
all know that vegetation grows back
(especially in wet years), meaning that
we have to work annually to maintain
a clean, defensible homesite. So what
would that percentage be today? As you
read this article, do you have a defensible
space around your home?
It’s time to take stock of the
fuels on our properties and make a
work list for the coming months. As we
do this inventory, we should also consider
those with whom we share a driveway
or property line. Working together and
sharing the load can create an even larger
fire-resilient neighborhood.
Connecting individual properties
that have lower fuel loads, healthier
vegetation, safe access/egress and
defendable homes can affect a wildfire’s
behavior and help make a safer area for
firefighters to do their job. Maybe save
lives and homes as well?
I’m in—are you?
Sandy Shaffer • sassyoneor@gmail.com