Highlands Community Fire Safe Committee
Mission
Our Mission: “The Highlands Community Fire Safe Committee (HCFSC) is dedicated to protecting lives, property and natural resources from wildfire through fire and safety awareness education and projects to mitigate fire danger.”
Current Status
The Highlands Community Fire Safe Committee has held two community meetings to introduce and discuss the Highlands Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). Our first two meetings, held in February and March of 2012, involved stakeholders and community members. Several volunteer meetings have also taken place over the last four months.
So far, we have had the participation of at least 50 community members and 15 stakeholders (including our elected officials), discussed the geographical area that we want to address in our CWPP, identified some important community features and issues to consider while making the greater Highlands better protected against wildfire, and started our first draft of the CWPP.
We hope you will continue to be a part of this process – your insights are important. And it’s not too late to be part of the core team writing the document, so volunteer now!
Upcoming CWPP Meeting Dates
There’s still time to participate in the creation of the Highlands Community Wildfire Protection Plan. If you would like to have your voice heard on ways to keep our community safer from wildfires, please come to one or both of the following meetings:
Date TBD, presentation of Highlands Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
If you would like to help create the Highlands Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), there are many opportunities available to you.
Writers. Authors. Help write the CWPP. You don’t have to be an expert in fire science. We need: a brief history of the Carmel Highlands, its values and assets; a fire history of the Highlands; address the issue of structural ignitability – measures individuals and communities can take to reduce ignitability of structures and; other areas to be determined.
Manage the CWPP document. This means receiving edits and comments, making sure edits and comments are considered and incorporated as appropriate, posting current drafts to the online document sharing application (currently Google Docs).
Update and maintain a community-wide mailing list. This database is currently in an .xls file.
Lead volunteer. Be part of the Core Team to coordinate various activities with other volunteers.
