"The National Firewise Communities program is intended to serve as a resource for agencies, tribes, organizations, fire departments and communities across the U.S. who are working toward the common goal of reducing loss of lives, property and resources to wild land fire by maintaining communities in a way that is compatible with the natural surroundings."
Genesee has been a recognized Firewise USA Community since 2002 through continuous actions taken to reduce home loss due to wildfire. Genesee has performed multiple hazard assessments to identify values at risk and outline measures to mitigate these hazards. From the community assessments, multiple strategic fuel reduction projects have occurred. Information about past assessments and fuel reduction projects is located on the Genesee Foundation, Ecosystem web page.
In a continuation of the Firewise Communities program and the 2003 Healthy Forest Initiative, Genesee Fire Protection District (GFPD) completed a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) in May of 2008. The purpose of this plan is to examine specific wildfire risk to the community and provide prioritized mitigation recommendations designed to reduce the identified hazards.
Many areas within the Genesee Foundation Home Owners Association are classified as an extreme wild land fire risk. One of the action items outlined in the CWPP is to increase fire protection preparedness by developing and distributing community incident preparedness pre-plans. This action item has been adopted by GFPD and is scheduled to occur during the summer of 2009. Through a GIS software called "Red Zone" the Genesee Fire Protection District will survey homes within its district to evaluate specific wildland fire hazards be better prepared during a wildland fire event and to help educate residents within the GFPD on actions they can take to reduce their wildland fire hazard rating.
Please review the information provided on this web page to help answer questions you may have regarding this project.
