As we all know, living in the Santa Cruz Mountains is a beautiful experience but also a great challenge. Our forest ecosystem has undergone major changes in the last 150 years and needs our stewardship to adapt and thrive. We have learned from recent wildfire activity that we need to do more. The Fire Safe Council of Santa Cruz formed in 2016 to educate and mobilize local residents to protect their lives, homes, communities, and environment from wildfire.
Firewise communities are self-organized neighborhoods, recognized by the National Fire Protection Agency, that build community resilience to wildfire and support the health of the forest and riparian ecosystems we are a part of and love so much.
We learned about the Firewise program from Lynn Sestak at the Fire Safe Council who presented "Why Go Firewise" to our community on August 8, 2024. A recording of the presentation and slides can be found at these links:
Lynn also provided us a community risk assessment as we drove around our proposed Firewise community on September 24, 2024. Follow this link to read her Report.
More information about the Santa Cruz County Fire Safe Council's Firewise program can be found on their website at https://www.firesafesantacruz.org/firewise-usa-recognition-program).
Our county has more than 80 Firewise communities, with more communities added every year! To see all the Firewise communities within Santa Cruz County, click here.
Our Firewise application to form Mt Bache Loma Prieta Plus was submitted on October 31, 2024 and accepted on December 20, 2024. A big thank you to our steering committee and community participants for sharing their time, expertise, and feedback, empowering us to reach this stage!!
For more information on how our Firewise community was formed and our requirements for remaining in good standing, continuing reading How to Join Firewise.
We completed these steps for our community and were recognized by the NFPA in December 2024. Each year, we will need to repeat steps 3 and 5, by hosting or attending a community educational event and documenting our wildfire resilience efforts. After three years, late 2027 for us, we will need to update our three year plan and resubmit our application through the NFPA Firewise portal. Every five years, late 2029 for us, we will need to complete a new community risk assessment with a fire professional, with input from our community participants.
We are lucky to have many people willing to participate in our steering committee! We are responsible for organizing and documenting our community's wildfire resilience efforts and reporting to the NFPA annually as well as updating our Action Plan every three years and updating our Community Risk Assessment every five years. We can't do it alone! Feedback and participation from our community residents is needed to be successful.
Our steering committee circulated a google form survey to gauge interest in Firewise participation and the level of wildfire readiness of individual properties within our neighborhoods. An anonymized summary of the survey results can be viewed here. This survey opened in late August and closed on September 30, 2024. A big thank you to all our participants!! We even heard from residents outside our original outreach area and ultimately widened our community boundary to accommodate everyone. We tried to draw a reasonable boundary to include all survey participants, as well as considering shared risks like road access, evacuation routes, and adjacency to open spaces, without overextending ourselves.
We submitted the map below in our application to form a Firewise community. The boundary is drawn in blue and encompasses 76 dwellings across 79 properties. The community boundary is informed by a multiple factors, including survey response, shared road access / evacuation route, the county line to our north, and the Spanish Ranch Firewise community boundary and Highland Rd to our south.
To see an interactive version of this map, which shows water sources, emergency vehicle turnaround points, and other features, click here.
A community risk assessment needs to be performed initially to apply for Firewise and then once every five years to remain in good standing. The steering committee is responsible for completing the community risk assessment document with input from all participating residents via the community risk assessment survey and a community drive-through with local fire professional. Our community drive-through took place with Lynn Sestak on September 24, 2024, who put together a report for our application. The report can be viewed here.
The community drive-through does not include any individual property assessments, only the general conditions of the community, such as roadside vegetation. Individual property assessments are completely voluntary and can be requested from the Fire Safe Council by filling out the request form at this website: https://www.firesafesantacruz.org/HIZ.
The results of the community risk assessment survey and drive-through are used to fill out the Firewise Community Assessment template, required for our application. The completed form can be found here.
In 2024, our community event was a Zoom call with Lynn Sestak, volunteering as the Firewise Coordinator for Santa Cruz County, to share information and answer questions about Firewise. This event took place Thursday, August 8, 2024 at 6pm. A recording of Lynn's Zoom presentation can be found here. A copy of the slides can be found here.
In order to share information about this event and future events, our steering committee needs to know how to best contact you. We have contact details for all our survey responders. If you have not completed the survey but want to stay informed of future Firewise updates and events, please share your name, email address, and/or phone number with our steering committee by emailing Amy at winkleramy@gmail.com.
The steering committee shared a first draft with our survey responders via email and WhatsApp on October 15 for review and finalized the document for our application on October 31, 2024. The submitted document can be found here.
This plan is informed by the community risk assessment and by the shared concerns of our residents. In the community risk assessment survey, participants could share the issues most important to them and how they are willing to contribute. Some issues to keep in mind include:
This step needs to be renewed every three years.
Keep track of how much time and/or money you spend on home hardening, defensible space, wildfire preparedness, and/or education activities. Our steering committee will reach out annually to request this information via your preferred contact method. A Firewise community in good standing must show a combined effort equivalent to at least one hour or $30 spent per household per year.
Click here to see an example of how to document your activities. Participants are welcome to document activities on this sheet or track privately and share cumulative efforts - time/dollars spent plus estimated amount of brush removed (for bragging rights!) - at the end of the year.
In 2024, our survey responders logged the equivalent investment of $202,279 on home hardening and defensible space, far exceeding the required $2,416.80, or $31.80/year x 76 dwellings. This investment was in the form of both time and dollars spent, specifically 2,105 hours, considered an investment of $66,939 by Firewise USATM, and $135,340 direct monetary investment on contractors, equipment, home improvement costs, vehicle mileage, and landscaping. We estimate the vegetation removal within our community, through chipping, burning, and hauling, to be around 1,465.60 Cubic Yards this year. We are proud to live in such an industrious and conscientious community!
Our steering committee created an online account and submitted our Firewise USATM Application on October 31, 2024. This application includes the Community Risk Assessment and Action Plan documents described in steps 2 and 4 and includes the steering committee members information, community boundary, and 2024 annual investment information from steps 1 and 5.
Enjoy of a greater sense of community and resilience to whatever challenges come our way! Living in an NFPA-Firewise community also comes with state and local benefits, such as early access to the Free Chipping Program, provided by the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, and an insurance discount with the California Fair Plan. Remember to log your home hardening and defensible space efforts for our future renewal application and look out for emails and WhatsApp messages regarding social and educational events for our community!