# Presentation: 885822

## Tennessee Firewise Communities Program	

- Robin Bible
- Tennessee Department of Agriculture
- Division of Forestry

- Bible, R. 2003. Tennessee Firewise communities program. Wildland/urban prevention exchange workshop May 20-22, 2003. Birmingham, AL.

## Tennessee’s Wildland/Urban Interface 

## 2001 Fall Fire Season

- 35,000 Acres (Oct. 15-Nov. 15)
- 65 homes lost
- 1 TDF Firefighter killed.
- 3 major fire
-      complexes.

## Tennessee’s Wildland/Urban Interface

- As growth occurs in TN’s WUI, difficulty for fighting wildfires in these communities has increased significantly.
- Risks for structures, property, and human safety is rapidly becoming a major focal point for homeowners, firefighters, and policy makers.
- Managing wildfire risk begins at the local level.

## Tennessee’s Wildland/Urban Interface

- Emphasis of the National Fire Plan is protecting homes/communities from wildfires.
- Risk assessment
- Hazard reduction
- Fire prevention/
- education
- Homeowner/
- community involvement

## Firewise

- Creating awareness about the WUI
- Promoting personal responsibility
- Providing educational materials

## Tennessee Firewise Communities Program

**Goals:**
- Provide funding to communities, organizations, institutions or groups for risk assessments/hazard mitigation projects.
- Involve local communities in addressing and implementing short and long term wildfire hazard mitigation actions.
- Promote community fire safe/disaster preparedness plans.
- Develop partnerships.

## Tennessee Firewise Communities Program 

- Implement wildfire hazard risk assessment and mitigation programs supported by the National Fire Plan.
- Develop partnerships with public/private organizations to raise public awareness about the WUI.
- Involve local residents in addressing and implementing short and long term wildfire hazard mitigation actions.
- Promote community fire safe plans.

## Grant Funds Are Authorized For:

- Wildfire hazard risk assessments.
- Hazardous fuels reduction projects
- Firewise and fire prevention community training and educational outreach programs, workshops, displays, and publications.
- Research projects dealing with Firewise, risk assessment and hazard mitigation in the WUI.
- Construction of protection measures for communities, such as dry hydrants, signage, etc.

## The First Step

- The first step to managing and reducing fire risk in Tennessee’s WUI is to
- assess the actual fire risks in individual developments or communities
- identify and implement strategies for reducing those risks.

## BUT........

**BUT........**

**How do you convince homeowners/ communities that they are at risk from wildfires?**

## Division of Forestry’s Fire Prevention Program 

- Hired Fire Prevention Foresters in 1978.
- Coordinate fire prevention/operations at the district level.
- Now working as a key point of contact on Firewise/WUI Projects.

## Firewise/WUI Training Materials

- Homeowners/Communities
- Firefighters

##   Firewise/WUI Training Materials

_**Homeowners:**_
- “Is Your Home Firewise?” Video (2002)
- Featured Firewise home in Sevier County
- Hosted by Bill Landry, “Heartland Series”
- Produced by UT Center for Video and Photography
- Developed “companion”materials

## Slide 15

## Firewise Homeowner Packets

## Slide 17

## Firefighter WUI Training 

- Wildfire Simulator
- SimViz 3500 ICS Simulator developed by Star Technology.
- Training component teaching firefighters how to fight fire in the WUI.
- Target date: September, 2003.

## WUI Training

- “Structure Protection in the Wildland Urban Interface” Video and Workbook
- Target date: June, 2003.

## 2003 WUI Training

- S-205 Fire Operations in the Wildland Urban Interface.
- 454 firefighters trained
- 		in the S-205 Course.
- 1,353 firefighters trained.

## 2003 Kentucky Tennessee Wildfire Training Academy

- Eight courses offered.
- 95 firefighters trained.

## Firewise Workshops (1 day)

- 40 workshops in communities.
- 500 homeowners attending.

## Wildland Urban Interface Task Forces

- WUI Task Forces have been organized in high fire danger areas in East Tennessee.
- Assist in hazard risk
- 	assessments,
- 	educational outreach,
- 	& training.

## WUI Partners

- Resource Conservation and Development Districts
- Cherokee National Forest
- Great Smoky Mountains/Big South Fork NPs
- Natural Resource Conservation Service
- UT Cooperative Extension Service

## Sponsoring WUI Research

- Funding 2 year UT graduate research project in the WUI.
- How to more effectively reach homeowners/communities in the WUI.

## Tennessee Wildfire Prevention

- Contracting with Interactive Training Media (ITM) to produce CD-ROM to educate 4th – 6th grade students about wildfires, Rx burning, home fire safety, etc.
- Eight teacher workshops to be conducted in Summer of 2003, reaching an estimated 400 teachers across Tennessee.

## Tennessee Wildfire Prevention

## WUI Pilot Projects

- Firewise Grants to Communities
- Bluff Mountain Project
- Cumberland Cove Project

## Bluff Mountain

- During the 2001 Fall Fire Season:
- Lost 5 homes during the Ridgecrest Fire (November 2001)
- Steep slopes, mountain topography, pine beetle mortality

## Cumberland Cove

- SPB problem
- Rugged topography
- Fire prone home construction
- Limited firefighting infrastructure
- Poor access
- Heavy fuels
- Lack of wildfire education
- Extended drought conditions
- Many lots have not been developed

## Slide 32

- The Problem is that the extensive planning, labor, and expertise to perform wildfire hazard is often beyond the internal capabilities of local, state, and even federal agencies.

## Contract with Dynamac Corporation

- Conducted wildfire assessment/mitigation plans for 27 communities across U.S. for USFS & BLM.
- Expertise includes ecological assessments, pollution prevention, GIS modeling, resource valuation, and water quality studies.
- Extensive Public & Community Outreach experience.

## WUI Assessment

- Collect Data.
- Identify critical fire hazards.
- Prescribe mitigation procedures that can be implemented.
- Publish reports/presentations at community meetings.

## Living on the Edge

- Addresses the fire hazards associated with the increasing numbers of homeowners choosing to build their homes in the WUI.
- Designed for community planners, developers, architects, builders, elected officials, insurance agents, emergency managers and homeowners.
- Topics include: hazard evaluation, firewise strategies, community stakeholder roles, and more.

## Living on the Edge

**How to Have a Firewise Home**: a companion piece to the Living on the Edge program.
- Designed for homeowners, explores ways to improve their home defensible space zones by interacting with a Firewise home and viewing landscape strategies.

## Nashville Firewise Conference

**Tennessee Firewise Communities Workshop** scheduled for September 22-24, 2003 at the Marriott Airport Hotel in Nashville.
- The Firewise Communities Program is in its final year of hosting these regional workshops across the United States.. About 100 people are invited to attend.

## Future Projects (2003)

**Firewise Communities USA: **
- Providing funding for communities eligible for the program.
- Wildland fire staff from state agencies provide a community about wildfire mitigation.
- Community assesses its risk and creates its own network of cooperating homeowners, agencies, and organizations.
- Community identifies and implements local solutions

## Tennessee Interagency Fire Prevention Team   

## The Problem

- The 2001 fall fire season in East Tennessee was extreme.
- 600 fires on Cherokee NF in Summer, 2002.
- Fire starts were rapidly increasing in September.
- SPB damage added fuel.
- WUI is prevalent throughout ET and the Cherokee.

## Team Objectives (Delegation of Authority)

- Raise overall awareness of safety issues related to arson fires.
- Develop messages, handouts, and other fire prevention campaign materials.
- Develop and initiate media coverage for defensible space, arson awareness and other fire prevention topics appropriate for the area.

## Key Messages

- “Everyone can help prevention unwanted human-caused wildfires.”
- “It’s your responsibility to guard your home from wildfires.”

## Talking Points

- This fall’s fire season will see drier conditions due to the drought.
- Extra care needs to be taken when burning debris.
- SPB killed timber will provide extra fuels for fires.
- Fires will get bigger and burn hotter!
- Fires will be more expensive to control (air suppression)
- Homeowners will need to take personal responsibility to protect their homes from wildfires.

## Prevention Products

## Other Contacts

- Mark Wills
- Pat Head Summitt
- Bill Landry
- Dolly Parton

## Team Accomplishments

- Developed a fire prevention plan for the Cherokee NF.
- Developed prevention products (posters, booklets, flyers, PSAs, sample news releases, etc.)
- Media contact list.
- No Fall Fires!

- “*If you build houses out of forest materials, they’re going to burn just like forests. The urban wildland problem is in some ways a dumb problem to have because it has a technical solution. We can reduce these large damaging fires ....with zoning and building codes, simple housekeeping and simply building up some fire protection systems.”*
- Stephen Pyne, NPR Interview, August 14, 2000.