Participants from the first Florida FIREWISE Communities Workshop held in Port Saint Lucie on August 10th 2000 include Sheila Koiser and Gary Botts Disaster Resistant Neighborhood Coordinators for the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.

The disastrous wildfires in the western United States this summer have again emphasized the danger that accumulated forest fuels present to nearby human development. This scenario, however, is not unique to the west, it is occurring more and more frequently all over the country. Over the past century, our national population has doubled with much of the growth flowing into traditionally natural areas. This movement has created an extremely complex landscape that we know as the wildland/urban interface. Encroaching development in interface areas has resulted in numerous infrastructure problems, including catastrophic wildfires that increasingly threaten lives, homes and businesses.

In Florida, the story is no different. During the past three years, wildfires that burned almost a million acres have left over 750 structures damaged or destroyed. Unfortunately, our state will continue to experience damaging wildfires in the interface until people begin to work together to solve basic community planning issues at the local level.

Even though disaster can happen in any community, there are things that each of us can do to prepare for and lessen the effects of wildland fires in the interface. The FIREWISE Communities initiative was jointly developed by the US Forest Service and the National Fire Protection Association and is the first national program to offer a significant response to the wildland/urban interface fire problem. Work on the FIREWISE Communities program began in 1985 following devastating wildfires that claimed over 1400 homes. In Florida, the FIREWISE Communities program is coordinated by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Forestry.

Communities designed with FIREWISE concepts incorporate fire prevention principles into the planning process. The goal of FIREWISE Communities is to have the homeowner and fire protection agency become partners in the protection of wildland/urban interface homes and to have homes designed, built and maintained so that the home can withstand a wildfire without the intervention of a fire department.

The potential of this program can readily be seen in the Florida FIREWISE Comminutes Workshops currently being hosted by the Florida FIREWISE Steering Committee. These one-day, interactive workshops bring together professionals involved in planning, finance, construction, emergency management/disaster services, natural resource management, insurance and government. FIREWISE Communities Workshops deal specifically with Falls County, a hypothetical county patterned after a real county in the United States. The city-county complex has growth and sprawl characteristics that may, in fact, look similar to areas where we all live and work.

FIREWISE Community Workshop feature hands-on exercises that focus on cutting-edge, interactive approaches to planning and developing fire resistant development practices in communities. Participants use a database manipulated by ArcView to analyze and determine a wildfire hazard rating for a fictitious subdivision know as Bear Heights. Participants then develop recommendations to reduce the wildfire hazard rating of the subdivision by 25 percent or more.

Participants learn many things but none more important than the fact that planning for safe Wildland/Urban Interface communities is everybody's business and as many as possible must be involved.

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