Community Chips Away at Wildfire

Community Chips Away at Wildfi re Mitigation Sundance changes culture along with landscape THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A COMMUNITY brush vie for supremacy and an oc ca sion al in the wildland/urban interface that took a meadow opens to a view of the mountains. long look at its wildfi re risk and decided to During the winter, snow covers the area and it do something about it. But where such a story becomes a popular ski destination. usually begins with a wake-up call in the form Like many resort communities, Sundance of a catastrophic fi re, in Sundance, Utah, the has a mix of full- and part-time inhabitants, process began with a simple meeting. though the number of res i den tial water hook- In August 1998, a handful of res i dents ups, 350, is far greater than the number of came together with state and local fi re manag- full-time adult res i dents, 70. Still, there are ers in a community fi re forum. Join ing them 11 different homeowner as so ci a tions, and were fi re experts from across the United Sundance remains un in cor porat ed under the States, as well as a facilitator to keep the dis- ju ris dic tion of the North Fork Special Service cussions on track. District. One of the meeting participants was Alpine Loop Road runs through the heart Jack Cohen, a scientist with the U.S. Forest of Sundance and connects to the side roads Service in Missoula, Montana, who has that twist high into the canyon where small continued to consult with the community. cottages and multi-million dollar homes sit He saw right away that Sundance faced sig- artfully concealed. Follow Alpine Loop Road nifi cant challenges. to the crestline and Sundance gives way to “I conducted a quick assessment of the U.S. Forest Service land. community and identifi ed a num ber of igni- Actor and director Robert Redford tion factors needing mit i ga tion,” he said. bought much of what today comprises The experts walked the attendees Sundance in 1969 and his Sundance Resort through a process designed to es tab lish a rests at the base of the canyon, welcoming long-term fi re mitigation plan, and ev ery- visitors. Across the street is the volunteer one was left with a lengthy list of things fi re de part ment that was built on land he to do. The daylong meeting went well, but donated. Redford has described Sundance Sundance resident as one participant later recalled, “That’s as “a mixture of old and new, lush and Kathy Hammons always the easy part. Then what do you spare, sophisticated and prim i tive,” and he do?” con tin ues to make a home there. In Sundance they kept meeting, once An occasional fi re down in the valley will a month, and soon they were joined by send smoke up the canyon toward Sundance, rep re sen ta tives from the Utah Division of giving residents a scare, but the community Forestry, Fire and State Lands and other itself hasn’t had a major burn in more than a agencies. Eight months later, after sharing century. While a wildfi re didn’t drive people a draft with area stakeholders, the group to par tic i pate in the August 1998 meeting, emerged with the North Fork Wildfi re Plan, other factors did. which contin ues to guide Sundance on its journey toward sustainable, communitywide ‘A long, slow process’ wildfi re mit i ga tion. Kathy Hammons attended the meeting and was the fi rst chair of the ad hoc com- ‘A mixture of old and new’ mit tee that formed in its aftermath. She cred- Sundance sits in the north fork of Provo it ed the people who moved to Sundance from Canyon, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake other at-risk communities for bringing a new City. Towering above Sundance is 12,000-foot perspective. Mount Timpanogos. Surrounding the town “I was raised in California where wild fi res are forests where aspen, conifer and oak- are common and a fi refi ghting in fra struc ture 16 At Home in the Woods is taken for granted,” Hammons said. “The pass out fi re-safety literature. And in the early population in Utah is just starting to sprawl 1990s, strict ordinances went into effect into the more fi re-prone areas, and many new throughout Utah County, which includes people coming in understood that we were in Sundance, calling for wildfi re-oriented build- a pretty bad situation.” ing and defensible space on any new con- At the time of the meeting, residents had struction. also recently been warned by state foresters But it wasn’t until the fi re forum that a that Sundance and the other communities coordinated, comprehensive approach to along Utah’s Wasatch Front were extremely wildfi re mitigation began to emerge and vulnerable to fi re. Against this backdrop, some longstanding paradigms began to and with the support of Redford and other change. community leaders, a fi re forum was put “It has been a long, slow process,” said together. Tom Wroe, Utah County fi re marshal since Over the years Sundance had built one 1987 and 34-year veteran of fi refi ghting. “The of the best volunteer fi re departments in dynamics of this community are different the state while also working to mitigate its than in other parts of the country. People buy fi re risks. For example, residents have long land here and move here because they want to performed “bridge watch,” which involves get away. It’s a place they come to for solitude. stopping cars on busy holiday weekends to It’s a great place to play. Sundance homes in the interface 17 At Home in the Woods “Any community can pull its people together, organize and come up with a plan.” — Tom Wroe “But there is a lot of work that needs district is also in charge of the volunteer to be done when you buy a mountain fi re department, it was an opportunity prop er ty.” to join the government and community Two of the biggest challenges facing together.” the fi re forum were fi nding a way to in- A second change occurred in 2002. For volve part-time residents in the community the fi rst time, the board voted—unan i - effort and overcoming resistance from those mous ly—to begin assessing for specifi c fi re opposed to changing the natural look of mit i ga tion activities, such as removing excess the area. So as the participants left that fi rst fuels, educating the public and developing meeting, there was a high degree of moti - evac u a tion plans. The board even voted to va tion, a mountain of work—and a few buy a chipper. And Olsen said there was no sur pris es. real opposition. “People don’t like to pay for “We started by forming an ad hoc com- things, but when they see houses starting to mit tee, and we thought we would have to burn...” put this whole thing together and shop it,” The assessments have provided something Hammons said. “But it went the other way. else, too. There is now paid clerical support The agency representatives wanted to come to for the advisory council and committee mem- the table with us, and that just shocked us. We bers—all volunteers—who do much of the had no idea that they would want to be part day-to-day work. of this.” From the beginning, the ad hoc com- Hammons also discovered that the mere act mit tee proved adept at generating outside of planning produced results. “What we found fi nancial support for its activities. through the planning process is that once “We brought in a $28,000 grant the fi rst you sit down and start, you are im me di ate ly year and put it into a demonstration project forming com mit tees that are action-oriented. that showed a lot of people what we could So even though it might take awhile to fi nish do,” Hammons said. “The next year we re- the plan, the com mit tees will still be moving ceived $190,000 under the National Fire Plan forward.” to continue our work.” The required 50-50 match for the grants was paid through sweat- ‘It started clicking’ equity. Today the North Fork Fire and Safety As of February 2002, in-kind donations Advisory Council is the focal point of the of labor, services, supplies and equipment community’s wildfi re mitigation efforts, amounted to more than $250,000. For anchored by a wildfi re plan that continues example, in 2000, 2001 and 2002, Brigham to evolve. Stew Olsen, a lifelong resident of Young University—which operates the Aspen Sundance and a member of the family that Grove Family Camp in the canyon—brought originally settled the canyon, was chair of the in hundreds of volunteers to spend half a day North Fork Special Service District Board for clearing out dangerous fi re fuels. Each visit several years and saw the council go through netted the community some $35,000 as an distinct phases. in-kind donation. A major change occurred when the “When I fi rst started it was always, ‘But original ad hoc committee became an we don’t have any money...’” Hammons said. ad vi so ry council under the special service “Now people are seeing that they can bring district board.

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