| California Fire Alliance
By Mike Chapel, USDA Forest Service
The California Fire Alliance is a coalition of state, federal, and local fire protection providers who have come together to provide more efficient fire management programs for the citizens of California. This cooperative membership is dedicated to the support of prefire principles and activities to ensure that prefire management provides for public and community safety, minimizes costs and losses, and maintains or improves the quality of the environment. This interagency forum for coordinating member agencies’ efforts in an integrated fashion adopted its charter in July of this year. The signatories include the Los Angeles County Fire Department, California Fire Safe Council, Bureau of Land Management, USDA Forest Service, National Park Service, California Fire Safe Council, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The new charter identified four main goals and methods. First, the Alliance, through its members, will work with communities at risk from wildfire to develop community–based leadership and facilitate the development of community fire–loss mitigation plans, which transcend jurisdiction and ownership boundaries through the following strategies: encouraging the interaction of member field staff with community–level stakeholders, facilitating community outreach activities, promoting the use of agency planning resources and tools as they are available, and assisting communities in accessing appropriate planning data and resources. Second, the Fire Alliance will assist communities in the development of fire–loss mitigation projects that will reduce the threat of wildfire losses on public and private land by facilitating community interaction with subject matter experts, promoting the use of member planning resources and tools as they are available, assisting communities in accessing appropriate project planning data and resources, and providing on–site expertise and guidance during project implementation. Third, through its members, the Alliance will develop universal information and education outreach plans to increase awareness of the wildland fire protection program opportunities that are available to communities at risk. And fourth, the Alliance will work together to develop, modify, and maintain a comprehensive list of communities at risk. California Biodiversity News: Volume 8, Number 2 |