Regional Priority Living with Fire

Primary tabs

    Contents

    Living with Fire Community of Practice

    Priority from the Western Region

    Description:

    One of the most pressing natural resource issues in the Western United States is the threat of wildfire to human life and property. Much of the West is considered a high fire hazard environment, possessing all the ingredients necessary to support intense and uncontrollable wildfires. During the decade of the 1990s, more acres burned in Nevada than in the previous forty years combined and experts expect this trend to continue. Within this high hazard environment are individual homes, subdivisions, and entire communities.


    Unfortunately, many western homeowners are not prepared to survive a wildfire. The Living With Fire program was created in response to this need. Living With Fire is not a fire prevention program. Despite the best efforts of firefighting agencies, wildlands will continue to burn. Living With Fire is about teaching people how to safely coexist with wildfire when it does occur. It is focused on achieving widespread implementation of pre-fire activities by at-risk homeowners. Pre-fire activities are those actions taken by the homeowner before the wildfire occurs that improves home survivability. They include use of fire resistant building materials, proper management of vegetation surrounding the home, and providing adequate access for firefighting resources.


    Living With Fire also addresses what to do during (e.g., evacuation recommendations) and after the fire (e.g., scorched landscape care and erosion control). The program’s target audiences include homeowners, firefighting agencies, landscape industry professionals, and realtors. Living With Fire products are the most widely used and well known wildfire threat reduction educational materials by Nevada’s firefighting agencies and homeowners. The Living With fire Homeowners Guide may be the most widely distributed wildfire threat reduction publication in the nation, with over 40 versions and 2 million copies in print. In addition to Nevada, the Living With Fire materials are used by firefighting agencies and homeowners throughout California, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, and Wyoming. Currently, research is being done in California to evaluate the effectiveness of different building products in resisting ignition and preventing ember penetration. In the past few years, there have a many new building products created. The research will help determine which choices are good or bad for high fire hazard areas. This and other research disseminated through eXtension would provide timely information to consumers.


    Possible CoP Members:

    Possible CoP Members from the 1890 Region

    Possible CoP Members from the North Central Region

    Possible CoP Members from the North East Region

    Possible CoP Members from the Southern Region

    CSREES Program Leaders (Liaison)

    Administrative Advisor(s)

    Tags: 
    Content Documents