​Results of Calpine Firewise Survey

Hi All,

I am so proud of my neighbors and my town! I went through the surveys you filled out and confirmed what I already suspected. As a community, we are are well educated, optimistic, eager to learn more, willing to work on our places, willing to volunteer to help each other, and prepared to take care of ourselves and help others in an emergency. Here is a breakdown of the responses:

• Most of us know quite a bit about the FIREWISE USA® program
• Almost everyone thinks that the FIREWISE USA® program can make us a lot safer from wildfire
• The best way to tell the community more about FIREWISE is through email and the bulletin board 
• Most of us know a lot about how to make our buildings safer from wildfire
• Almost everyone wants MORE information on how to make their buildings safer
• Time and money are the big things that prevent us from doing more to make our buildings fire resistant
• Only a few of us know 'A lot' about what to do first to make our buildings more fire resistant
• Almost all of us know quite a bit about creating defensible space
• Only a few of us know 'A lot' about how to prioritize our work on defensible space
• We would do more work on our defensible space :  

            - if we had more time
            - if we knew what to do first
            - if we knew who to hire
            - if we had the tools

• Almost everyone would have yard waste to haul away on a green waste pickup day   
• EVERYONE would be willing to volunteer for an hour to help a neighbor with defensible space
• About half of us would like to have a group of volunteers helping us with defensible space
• Everyone has at least somewhat of a plan to evacuate in an emergency
• Most of us would be able to help a neighbor evacuate
• Most of us have house numbers visible from the street        

The Firewise committee will now put together a 3 year plan that will address the recommendations made at our community risk assessment last fall while making use of the strengths and needs revealed by the survey. 

Thanks for your participation. Please send comments and suggestions to calpinefirewise@yahoo.com

Calpine Firewise Coordinator
Dolly Chapman