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Thursday, September 6, 2007

Fire Safety Panel Taking Over for Volunteer

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
    To replace himself in a single volunteer position, Ken Till created a committee of four people.
    Till's position is not an easy one to fill, according to members of the newly formed East Mountain Coalition Wildland Fire Safety Committee.
    "The guy knows everything ... he was just so incredibly knowledgeable and he just jumped in," said Margaret Carroll.
    Carroll and Deea Emmons have taken co-chair positions on the committee.
    Emmons said she was also impressed with Till.
    "I wish we could keep what's inside of his head ... just hook us up to some kind of a machine and say, 'OK, now we know what Ken knows,' '' said Emmons.
    Till was retired with 35 years of experience in fire management, including work with the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service.
    With the Park Service, Till helped to oversee 47 national parks, including sites in Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa. He has an undergraduate degree in forestry from Oregon State University and did graduate work in fire ecology.
    Since he began volunteering in the East Mountains area after moving here two years ago, Till has done site visits and risk assessments for individual homeowners and helped them thin trees around their homes to mitigate the risk of fire. He has also helped neighborhood associations develop evacuation plans and identify the areas that are most threatened by fire.
    He has also documented the neighborhoods he has visited and what he has done so far.
    "I'm really wanting that committee to take the ball and run with it," Till said. "It can't be a Ken Till thing, it's more than just me."
    Although Till has presented them with "big shoes to fill," Carroll and Emmons say they're up to the challenge.
    "I think we're off to a good start, and, trust me, we're not going to slack. This is too important," she said.
    One step Emmons is taking is working to make her own neighborhood, Rancho Verde, a Firewise Community.
    The Firewise Communities recognition program enables communities in or near forested areas to protect against fire and also keep a sustainable forest ecosystem.
    To gain recognition, communities are required to take measures such as thinning trees around home sites and roadways or keeping wood piles away from houses.
    Once Emmons has registered her own community, she said, she plans to work with other neighborhoods to get them Firewise recognition.
    As a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty, Emmons said there may be additional value to those efforts, aside from peace of mind. She said the added safety should be reflected in homeowners insurance rates as well as property values.
    She also said thinning trees around one's property might help with the water table. She said some estimates say a single juniper can drink 20 gallons of water a day.
    "If you don't have trees taking up every inch of your property, then your property would be consuming less water," she said.
    Carroll, who lives in Ponderosa Ranch Estates, has also worked with her neighborhood to thin and clear trees. She is looking into ways thinning can be done for low- or fixed-income households.
    She said she is also looking into grant opportunities to help with projects, as well as volunteer labor that may come from East Mountain High School or local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
    She said the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District also may be a source of funding for thinning projects.
    Ciudad administers the East Mountain Forest Health Program, which receives federal funds channeled through the New Mexico State Forestry Division. The funds "assist landowners with creating wildfire-defensible space around their homes by paying contractors to remove flammable underbrush and thin out woodlands," according to a news release from the conservation district.
    Along with other projects, Carroll and Emmons are looking into further fire training for themselves. They are also working to make a joint Web site for the East Mountain Coalition of Neighborhood and Landowner Associations and the Wildland Fire Safety Committee.
    The Web site will be for both entities, in part, because the committee was set up with the goal of implementing programs for the East Mountain Coalition.
    Emmons summed up why she feels passionate about the work she is doing:
    "We've chosen to come into the forest, the forest hasn't chosen to come to us," she said.