Becoming fire safe: Make it a neighborhood effort

With fire season in full swing, many homeowners may be taking steps to better protect their homes from the threat of wildfire. Wildfire experts are encouraging homeowners to get together with their neighbors to make it a neighborhood project.

"When a neighborhood gets together, they can really do a lot to protect the entire community," explains Ed Smith, natural resource specialist, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. "In addition, there is a lot of help and resources available to neighborhoods that form chapters of the Nevada Fire Safe Council."

Smith said that the Nevada Fire Safe Council is a nonprofit organization that was started a few years ago to acquire funding to help Nevada communities reduce the wildfire threat. It now has more than 60 chapters and 3,000 members.

The council can help local chapters:

• obtain information and specific recommendations on what the neighborhood can do to reduce the wildfire threat;

• obtain resources needed for fuel reduction projects;

• create a neighborhood fuel break to slow down oncoming wildfires; and

• organize a community fire-hazard cleanup.

"We are very fortunate to have the Nevada Fire Safe Council," Smith said. "They have really helped to fill a void. They not only provide resources, but they also help us get important information out to homeowners on how they can live more safely with the threat of wildfire."

To find out more about forming a chapter of the Nevada Fire Safe Council in your neighborhood, contact Andrew List, executive director, Nevada Fire Safe Council, 884-4455 or go online to: www.nvfsc.org.

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To learn more about protecting your home from the threat of wildfire, visit www.livingwithfire.info or contact Smith at University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, 782-9960 or smithe@unce.unr.edu. Living With Fire is an interagency program coordinated by University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.

• Contact Sonya Sistare at 784-4848 or by e-mail at: sistares@unce.unr.edu; or

Claudene Wharton, public information officer at 784-4848 or by e-mail at: whartonc@unce.unr.edu.