Firewise program ends; Lane County recognizes 16 years of success

Presenter: After 16 years, Lane County says farewell to the Firewise program—for now. On Aug. 25, County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky:

Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County, administrator): It’s always a pleasure to recognize our employees and the services that we provide to the community.

This one today is a little bittersweet: bitter because the program we’re recognizing has ended because of changes in federal rules; sweet because of the incredible work over the past 16 years that the Firewise program and the staff who have led that program provided to the community.

So we have at the table here with us. You all know Keir Miller. This is our planning team from Land Management Division that has led this program: Keir Miller, Jared Bauder, Benjamin Zublin, Cammryne Anderson, and Lindsey Eichner. 

I was talking to Lindsey, who’s our planning director at this moment, before the meeting started. And she said, without this program, without this Firewise program, she would likely not be a county employee because she was hired on after an initial layoff in 2008-2009, was hired on to this program.

So we’re recognizing the Firewise program that began in 2010, and for the past 16 years has provided funding for property owners to harden their homes against risk of wildfire funding, supported projects like creating defensible space, planting fire resistant landscapes, replacing wood shake roofs and wood siding with less combustible materials and similar improvements.

During this time, we’ve been fortunate to have several talented planners in Land Management to lead the grant program and to work directly with our residents. You see those that are with us today, and there are some that are not with us today who have been involved in the program and done outstanding work.

So a few of the highlights of this program over the past 16 years: 

• Staff conducted thousands of individual home site assessments across the county, providing customized guidance on reducing ignition potential and increasing home survivability during wildfire events.
• Staff organized and attended scores of community outreach events, including the spring and fall home and garden shows, the Lane County Fair, various neighborhood meetings and local granges and other community venues.
• Fire staff successfully applied for and received a $500,000 Community Wildfire Risk Reduction grant from the Oregon State Fire Marshal. These funds supported defensible space development for low-income residents and fuel reduction work on high-risk rural properties.
• Staff also supported a robust public engagement program, including TV and radio ads, direct mailers, billboards, fire-resistant plant raffles and other communications and activities aimed at increasing awareness of wildfire mitigation practices and incentive programs.

In total, the Firewise program provided 1,071 individual grant awards. The average grant award amount was $4,616, and there was a total amount of $4,944,069, almost $5 million in funding that was issued to Lane County and our residents.

So we’re recognizing this team for their passion to serve. 

And of course, the need for these programs has not gone away. It’s just unfortunate that the rules of the federal funding that supported this program have changed.

We will work to find other ways and grant programs to try to support these things, but we want to recognize the incredible staff that have led this program and supported our residents and communities over the past 16 years.

And I’d ask Keir Miller, who has led this program for many years, if he’d want to add any comments.

Keir Miller (Lane County): Sure. Thanks, Steve, and good morning, commissioners. Yeah, our staff has done an outstanding job with this program over the years. 

I also want to recognize the Oregon State Fire Marshal on both our East and West Lane Department of Forestry, folks who really supported the program as well and been our partners in this really important work.

Steve mentioned this program started around 2009, right after the big fallout of the housing bust. And it was a great program at that time. It incentivized folks to go out and work on their homes and develop. And it was at a time where the risk of wildfire wasn’t really as recognized in the county.

And I recall when we would do meetings and do outreach back in the day, people would refer to this as ‘the asbestos forest on the west side of Lane County.’

And it was great that we had so many years to promote the program and see so many folks take meaningful steps to make their home safer, because obviously we’re in different times now.

So it’s been a good program. Staff has been very dedicated in land management. We often have to, you know, enforce regulations. And this has been a really a nice part of our program where we’re able to actually incentivize the things we want to see and provide funding to the community. And it’s been successful, and I really appreciate the staff.

Presenter: Commissioner David Loveall:

Commissioner David Loveall: It is a great program. Firewise ending is kind of a sunsetting thing that we didn’t really expect nor want.

I mean, we live in an area where, you know, forest management and the edges of our forests and our rural communities are at risk a lot of times. And so having this program to educate them for the barriers and the things necessary for them to not only have their property survive, but ultimately, this is a program that saves lives and has saved lives and will continue in the future.

So I’m grateful for your participation, for your persistence, and professionalism. Thank you for working with our government agencies.

And I’m sure because of the success of this program and the heart and soul that you’ve put into it, it’s going to become part of the culture of Land Management Division to continue these focuses for having people guard their properties in a rural area, F2 zone, and that kind of thing with defensible spaces, so that we can all thrive as a community.

So well done. Thank you for doing this, and hopefully we’ll continue in some form or fashion in the future.

Presenter: Commissioner Pat Farr:

Commissioner Pat Farr: You know, when important work is in the rearview mirror, it doesn’t go away. When you leave your impression in a place that you’ve worked, whether it be a government agency, private industry, whatever it may be, you’re remembered forever because of the work that you’ve done, the legacy that you leave behind.

Just because the program is over doesn’t mean the program doesn’t go on. And it really is disheartening to hear the end of the program, but it’s encouraging to know the work that you’ve done in the meantime, that it will not go away, that really through the years. And look what it brought— it brought us Lindsey (Eichner), for crying out loud.

And Lindsey, I don’t think you’re going away in the near future, but that being said, you know, you’ve saved lives. You don’t even know the you don’t even know the names of the lives that you’ve saved through the years.

It is incredible, the work that you’ve done. And again, it’s not going away. Your thumbprints are all over fire protection in Lane County forever and ever. Thank you for that.

Presenter: Commissioner Laurie Trieger: 

Commissioner Laurie Trieger: Just to echo what my colleagues have said and hope that future administrations or other sources are found for this work.

And the beauty of the work is unlike some programs, once you help a homeowner protect their investment—harden, let’s say, new roofing material, which these grants have done that—then it’s done. So it’s not like an ongoing service that if you don’t keep providing it for that one homeowner, they lose the benefit.

So the infrastructure, the more fire-safe infrastructure that this program has been able to support, will live on. And that’s really important, and it’s really interesting, right, to look back from 2009 to where we are now, how much more critical the work is, how much more aware people are, but how much more strapped homeowners and property owners are to have the resources to do this.

And how you put ‘that + that + that = cut the program’ is a little mind-boggling to me, but that’s why I’m hopeful, somewhere down the line, resources will be found to reinstate it. 

And I’m glad that we’ve been able to implement the program with existing staff. So this isn’t one of those ‘The funding went away, so the program goes away, so the staff goes away.’ 

And it’s also just another example of how many different hats many people at Lane County wear, all the different ways that they are improving lives and serving people in Lane County, even if it’s not what their primary role or title would suggest. So thank you all very much for the work.

Presenter: Commissioner Heather Buch:

Commissioner Heather Buch: I very much appreciate all that you’ve done over the years, I’ve been able to do ridealongs with folks that were going and checking out people’s houses where they’ve done these. And that was really educational for me. I appreciate doing that, because not everybody was able to take advantage of every type of program within Firewise.

But even just some of them made a huge difference in their homes. And for them, especially rebuilding up river after the fire, and seeing them be able to take advantage of some of these programs to help them rebuild, was really meaningful.

And also they felt a lot more secure in their homes. I think it’s such a shame that we are not seeing this program blossom into something even more robust and instead seeing it come to an end.

I think that’s a detriment to our community, and we should be finding ways in which to expand the program as a whole. There are many other ways that it could be utilized. So as long as we continue to advocate on behalf of homeowners, I’m hopeful that in the future, perhaps we can get a more robust program and easier for homeowners to apply for it.

Presenter: Commissioner Ryan Ceniga:

Commissioner Ryan Ceniga: I echo all these things. This is one of the programs that I was probably the most passionate about. I mean, I’m sure Commissioner Vice Chair Buch was also, but along with what everybody else said, our staff did such a great job of helping people navigate this process.

I know a lot of people came into it and I would handle a lot of phone calls: ‘Well, that doesn’t make sense.’ And then they’d meet with staff, and then you would explain why this is so important. And I talked with Jared a couple of times after you would go and look at the property and decide what needs to happen. And when they were done, the almost just the relief that these constituents residents felt was priceless.

And that $5 million that was spent on it. I mean, think how much that could save in the long run. I mean, this is, you know, this is what we need to keep touting when we go back after this program and do everything we can sitting here to get it renewed. So thanks, everybody. It was a great program and we’re sad to see it paused, but we’re going to go after it and get it back.

Presenter: Commissioners recognize Lane County employees supporting the Firewise program, now officially paused as the county searches for new funding.