By Clayton Preble
President, Wildcat Community
Reducing the risk to your home from Wildfires – Common Sense Measures to Minimize the Risk of Wildfire
The recent wildfire on Saturday night should serve as a wakeup call to all of us in Pickens County.
In 2006 a group of neighbors worked together to forge a plan to address the unique needs of our Jasper mountain community. What came from those discussions was a volunteer organization known as the Wildcat Community – made up of those communities that comprise the Pickens Mountains. In 2009, with the support of the community and the county, we opened our all-volunteer fire station – Pickens County Station 10. Today, the Wildcat Community is made up of 10 communities: Bent Tree, Big Canoe, Burnt Mountain Estates, Monument Falls, Sassafras Mountain Estates, Tate Mountain Estates, Tomahawk, Wintermont, Windsong, and Independents.
The cornerstone of the Wildcat Community is the nationally recognized program known as Firewise USA. Firewise USA is a voluntary program that provides the framework to help neighbors get organized, find direction, and take action to decrease the risk of wildfire to their homes and community.
The Wildcat Community is certified Firewise, and as such each member community supports and promotes Firewise initiatives. Those initiatives include understanding wildfire threats, preparing homes for the risk of wildfire, removing deadfall, establishing a defensible space, etc.
Why is this important for you? We are entering the time of the year when the risk of wildfire reaches its peak. With winter approaching and very dry conditions, all of us (long time and especially new residents, who may not understand the risk), need to be mindful of our individual responsibility to take steps to minimize the risk to ourselves and our neighbors. We should also become educated about steps each of us needs to take to make our homes Firewise and be prudent and extremely careful with fireplace ashes and outside fires.
Factors that affect the spread of wildfire include humidity, ground fuel (leaves, pine straw, branches, limbs, etc.), wind and slope. In addition, our mountains provide the watershed for our community. If that watershed is destroyed by wildfire, our entire community will suffer.
For more information on Firewise please visit the Wildcat Community website: www.wildcatcommunityga.org.
