Wildland fire meetings slated
From our weekly issue dated March 12, 2008
Last year, a public outcry was caused by a plan generated by the Forestland-Urban Interface Classification Committee.
Public concern was intense, and this triggered the shut-down of a public meeting about the plan at Josephine County Fairgrounds as residents filled the spacious Floral Bldg. while a line of hundreds waited outside.
Another meeting was held later in Cave Junction, and it also was a cause for angry confrontations between property owners and Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF), despite the agency’s attempts to present and explain the act.
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Two more public meetings on the same topic will be held in Grants Pass Tuesday and Wednesday, March 18 and 19, but there is a good reason why concerns should not be as intense this time.
The committee work was conducted to fulfill a requirement of the Oregon Forestland-Urban Interface Protection Act (OFIPA), a fire preparedness plan enacted by the Oregon Legislature in 1997.
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The purpose of the act is to reduce the risks of wildfire, especially to human life and property. The intent is to provide for the safety of residents and firefighters who work to protect homes from wildfire.
“More than 80 percent of the houses I have visited in the county are already in compliance or very close to it,” said ODF’s Kyle Holcombe in Merlin. Dan Gallagher, also of ODF, nodded to Holcombe’s comment and commented that concerns about the committee’s plan and work to comply with the mandates in the OFIPA appear to have become unnecessarily distorted.
The OFIPA, which has the difficult-to-follow language characteristic of most legislative documents, is actually not complicated. It boils down to the common-sense basics of surviving wildfire in rural Oregon.
For most people in Josephine County, compliance will involve little more than reviewing the compliance checklist and filling out the certification form mailed to them by ODF. The only cost will be the stamp to return the certification form.
ODF meetings, both at 6:30 p.m., will be on March 18 at Fleming Middle School, 6001 Monument Drive; and on March 19 at the Floral Bldg. at the county fairgrounds.
