Grant money to help with fire protection

San Luis Obispo County’s Fire Safe Council has been awarded nearly half a million dollars in grants for the 2016-17 Cal Fire State Responsibility Area (SRA) Fee and Tree Mortality program, according to a Dec. 6 email from Dan Turner, the council’s business manager.

In other words, some of that annual $152.33 fee that owners of local habitable residences pay every spring toward statewide fire-prevention services is coming back to this county in the form of three grants.

Turner said one of the three awards contains $199,000 in additional funding to remove dead and dying trees in the East Village/Bridge Street area of Cambria.

One satirist said Cambria is “chipping away at its forest crisis, one grant at a time.”

A lot of fire protection and forest-health work is ongoing in the community, much of it paid for by previous grants that the council applied for and got. Among those grants were $498,000 toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon; a $260,000 Wildland Urban Interface grant from the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition; and $100,000 from PG&E.

Turner said that the other two recently announced grants for San Luis Obispo County include: $116,000 toward updating a countywide community wildfire protection plan and completing wildland-urban interface fire preplans countywide; and $152,000 for removing dead and dying trees and chipping woody debris countywide, focusing on access roads and critical infrastructure.

Firewise

And there was other good news in various inboxes recently. The heading on the Nov. 17 message to Cambria and the Council’s FireSafe Focus Group said it all: “Welcome to Firewise Communities/USA.”

Yes, thanks to hard work by community members and officials, and an application process led by Bruce Fosdike of the focus group, Cambria has earned national Firewise community status.

The town of about 6,000 residents joins “a growing number of communities actively working to reduce their wildfire risks,” according to the email from Cathy Prudhomme, Firewise Communities/USA program manager. There are more than 1,200 recognized Firewise communities nationwide, part of a program that began in 2002, according to the Firewise website.

The designation and recognition of ongoing community efforts toward wildfire prevention also includes the possibility of slight discounts on fire-insurance premiums, especially through USAA Insurance, according to Craig Ufferheide of Cambria’s Community Emergency Response Team.

For details, go to http://bit.ly/28JOyBb.

Cambria also will get two official street signs for high visibility locations to promote wildfire mitigation efforts.

The recognition also gives community members access to free materials and online training, including a virtual workshop series, a detailed user reference guide and Firewise toolkit. For details, go to www.Firewise.org.

Fosdike, who is the focus group’s representative to the county’s Fire Safe Council, prepared the action plan.

He said last month that the plan and Firewise recognition also can enhance “community bonding around a central issue, pride of accomplishment and possible preference for future grant funding.”

Other SLO County communities with Firewise designations are Oakshores, Baron Canyon Ranch/Indian Knob in San Luis Obispo and Ranchita Estates in Arroyo Grande. Some other communities are in the process of applying.

This story was originally published December 7, 2016 at 8:39 AM with the headline "Grant money to help with fire protection."