Title
Consider Approval of Community Wildfire Protection Plan 2016
Recommended Action
I move that Council approve the 2016 Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
County Manager's Recommendation
The County Manager recommends that Council approve the motion as requested.
Body
Under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, the United States Congress set forth guidelines for communities at risk from wildfire to seek funding for mitigating the potential of losses from wildland fire at the urban interface. The act stipulates communities like Los Alamos develop a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) before applying for grants administered under the Act.
A CWPP must be developed as a collaborative plan that includes the local government, the fire department, and New Mexico Forestry which is the State agency responsible for forest management. Also, the plan must include input from interested parties and the Federal land management agencies managing land in the vicinity of the community.
The Los Alamos CWPP acknowledges that Los Alamos is located in fire-dominated ecosystem and it is not a question of if a wildfire will come but when it will come. To that end, as prescribed by the Healthy Forests Initiative, the CWPP identifies and prioritizes areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments and recommends the types and methods of treatment on Federal and non-Federal land that will protect the community and essential infrastructure. Acknowledging the critical role of homeowners, the CWPP also recommends measures to reduce structural ignitability of houses and other buildings in the County.
Wildland fire is a landscape-scale process that crosses jurisdictional boundaries. In the Los Alamos area, this requires a coordinated fire prevention and suppression effort between the Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos County, Bandelier National Monument, Santa Fe National Forest, and San Ildefonso and Santa Clara Pueblos. The Interage...
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