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STORIES -> Success Stories - Partnerships with Forest Service

Fire Education Corps Assists Homeowners

By Danny Ebert & Jody Handly

Danny Ebert is Intermountain Region Partnership Coordinator for the USDA Forest Service, Boise National Forest, Boise, ID. Jody Handly is Project Leader for the SCA Fire Education Corps in Idaho and Nevada, Boise, ID.

In 2001, homeowners along the wildland urban interface of Idaho and Nevada obtained a new resource: college volunteers willing to help them learn how to reduce the risk from wildland fires to homes and neighborhoods. Fifty-two college interns from the Student Conservation Association (SCA), the SCA Fire Education Corps, working through the nationally recognized FIREWISE program, spent the summer educating homeowners on ways to make their properties more firesafe.

Origins

The 2000 fire season was the most severe since the 1950s. Some 8.4 million acres burned nationwide, destroying more than 800 structures. Many of the largest blazes occurred in the Northern Rockies. Homes and communities in the region, especially in the wildland urban interface, clearly faced a growing threat from wildland fire.

In the fall of 2000, representatives from the Boise National Forest met with counterparts from the Home Depot, Inc., district for Idaho and Montana to sign a memorandum of understanding. The partners agreed to work together to educate rural communities on actions property owners can take to fireproof their homes and properties. The mechanism that both parties agreed to use was an education and prevention program patterned after the nationally known FIREWISE program.

The partners worked with the SCA, the National Fire Protection Association, the Keep Idaho Green Fire Prevention Committee, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Idaho State Department of Lands, and local Resource Conservation and Development Councils to develop a project called the SCA Fire Education Corps. The project received $325,000 in funding through the National Fire Plan, a 1:1 monetary match with the Idaho Department of Lands and another $140,000 through BLM's Nevada office.

Student Interns

"This project was the direct result of National Fire Plan funding in the fire prevention and education area. The project is emphasizing community assistance in the wildland-urban interface areas," said Guy Pence, Boise National Forest fire staff officer. The SCA interns worked in seven communities, five in Idaho (Boise, Coeur d'Alene, McCall, Pocatello, and Salmon) and two in Nevada (Carson City and Elko). Contributions included:

• Helping rural fire prevention and education districts with homeowner inspections,
• Staffing workshops and model home demonstration sites at local Home Depot stores, and
• Working with communities or neighborhoods to develop fuel reduction projects.

In each community, seven-person teams were trained in wildland-urban interface property inspection and in methods for working with neighborhoods. They concentrated their efforts in areas where fires might start and spread to homes surrounded by dense, dry fuels. "This volunteer effort is a neighbor-to-neighbor program where we all can work together productively to stop new fires and reduce homeowner risks from wildfires," said SCA Fire Education Corps project leader Jody Handly.

Enthusiastic Response

Congressional representatives briefed on the SCA Fire Education Corps responded enthusiastically. Christine Heggem, an aide to Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), asked whether an SCA team could be based in Missoula, MT, to serve homeowners in western Montana.

"This is an ambitious program," said Pence. "Local communities and homeowners are measurably gaining from the education tips provided, for example by implementing simple landscaping activities."

Contacts

For more on FIREWISE programs, see Cynthia Bailey, "FIREWISE Workshops Ignite Community Action," Fire Management Today 62(1): 4-6 or visit the Firewise website. For more information on the SCA Fire Education Corps, visit the SCA website at www.thesca.org