Agency Takes a Youthful Approach to Fire Safety in West
Jim Watson’s mountain home near here, deep in a sea of pinyon pines, cedars and sagebrush, was about to be assessed for how well it would withstand a wildfire.
“Don’t do me in,” he laughed nervously as the two inspectors began their detailed tour around the home, clipboards in hand.
Nothing would escape their trained eyes, and the multitude of ways his home would be found vulnerable during this dangerous fire season left Watson a bit unsettled.
By the end of the hourlong inspection, he promised to make amends, and the inspectors wished him well. And with that, the pair of fresh-scrubbed college students--Jeremy Ray, a 20-year-old from Kentucky, and Julia Olszewski, a 22-year-old from Ohio--moved on to the next home on their list.
A few months ago, neither had any fire prevention training--and a trip west of the Mississippi was a novelty.
But as summer interns for the Student Conservation Assn., they and about 50 other college students agreed to help the Bureau of Land Management inspect homes in the mountains and foothills abutting BLM land, a task that could be poorly received coming from Uncle Sam, at least in government-unfriendly Nevada.
In Nevada, the BLM often is viewed as an adversary because the federal government dictates the land use of nearly 90% of the state. Government officials figured homeowners would be more receptive to a bunch of well-intentioned college kids in polo shirts than federal inspectors in green uniforms.
“We’re helping to cross the boundaries of bureaucracy,” said Brian Van Kley, a supervisor for the SCA leading six students in the Carson City area. “Homeowners around here don’t necessarily want to talk to government bureaucrats, but they’ll talk to us about fire dangers. They know we won’t preach at them or cite them and that all we’re trying to do is discuss ways to make their homes more defensible against fire.
“We are nonthreatening volunteers,” he said.
And the personal contact, the students said, has a greater effect than receiving yet another fire-prevention flier.
“They can’t just throw us away,” Ray said. “And I’m learning a lot about how to deal with the public.”
This is the first year of the partnership between the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, local fire departments and the SCA, a national nonprofit organization that provides about 2,500 high school and college student volunteers for a host of local, state and federal agencies needing assistance on conservation projects.
Each year, according to the SCA, its interns provide about 1 million hours of service to conservation efforts across the country. When the organization launched its fire education corps earlier this summer, 500 students applied. The 50 chosen ones are working around here and Elko, Nev., and in five communities in Idaho.
The students receive weekly $50 stipends as well as room and board. The real benefit to the interns, they say, is a sense of public altruism--and resume building.
Local fire officials say they are grateful for the students’ help. “We simply don’t have the time to visit as many homes as these kids are,” said Tracy Curtis, an inspector for the Storey County Fire Department.
The students based in Carson City have inspected about 170 homes since starting in early July and hope to have offered 300 assessments by the time their tour of duty ends Aug. 31.
Not only are the students advising homeowners on fire protection, but they are also gathering information, to be left behind at fire stations, on each home visited: the construction type, any flammable materials, the number of residents and if they are ambulatory, the location of utility shut-offs and the availability of firefighting resources, such as wells and generators.
The student program is the newest tactic to be employed along the so-called Sierra Front, where 6,500-foot mountains slope up from the high desert floor and fires are commonly ignited by lightning, including two that were contained earlier this week after charring nearly 9,000 acres.
In 1999, the worst fire season in recent years, several hundred lightning-spawned wildfires charred 1.6 million acres in Nevada and destroyed two homes. Homeowners like Watson, who has dodged fires just a few miles away, are most vulnerable because they live in areas thick with vegetation.
“About half of all big fires end up threatening homes,” said Leonard Wehking, the BLM’s local fire management officer. “We’re doing all we can to help homeowners help themselves. It’s to our benefit as well, but these students are the local heroes for doing this work.”
And they take it seriously.
Inspecting Watson’s home, Ray and Olszewski were unabashed in pinpointing problem areas.
His fire-resistant asphalt roof shingles were good but he ought to enclose the underside of his eaves to prevent embers from lodging beneath the roof.
That wood pile next to the house? “Oh boy, is that a no-no,” Ray said.
The Russian olive tree isn’t too flammable, but it should be pruned so its branches don’t hang over the house. His trees should be cleared of branches within 6 feet of the ground so they don’t serve as a ladder for a grass fire. And his backyard balcony, with a million-dollar view over the mountain slope, should be screened from the deck to the ground below to keep embers out.
There should be space among the pines on his property so flames can’t jump from one to the next.
“It’s all a matter of creating defensible space,” Olszewski advised, offering the insights of a wise old firefighter.
Watson took the suggestions in stride. “I knew most of these issues even before they showed up. But I needed them to remind me to get these things taken care of.”
