Guest View – May 2019
With fire season coming, the Review is pleased to present this guest column to spread extremely important community information. Please be on the lookout for more information on this critical topic in future issues of the Review and on the city website at www.cityofjacksonvilleoregon.com.
In addition, please read about Oregon Fire Safe here, a new Rogue Valley business helping homeowners clean-up and prepare their properties for fire-related events.
On April 2, members of the Jacksonville Woodlands Association made a presentation to the Jacksonville City Council and requested permission to conduct a 7-acre prescribed burn in the woodlands behind the upper Britt parking lot. The burn will take place in the fall after being favorably received by council.
On May 18th, at 10:00am, members of the JWA, along with a representative from Grayback Forestry (anticipated contractor) will meet in the upper Britt parking lot to present the same plans to conduct the 7-acre prescribed burn in the woodlands. The public is invited to join the meeting and learn more about this plan.
The burn is the first of many to come, designed to reduce the accumulated debris on the forest floor which is capable of carrying a fire. This and future burns will inevitably reduce the chance for larger wildfires. By keeping the fuel load to a minimum, the chances of catching and stopping a wildfire are greatly increased, which will save the woodlands we have, and greatly reduce the smoke which may be discharged in a larger event.
During the meeting, we’ll walk through the project area, and explain why this prescribed burn is needed, and why it will be so easy to accomplish. Grayback Forestry has a 30+ year history of creating safe and manageable forest ecosystems, and is the firm we plan to partner with for many years.
In addition, those interested and willing are invited to walk to Panorama Point with us to discuss the fuel reduction project to be completed in that location by Grayback Forestry. This project will employ a different method of controlling fuels, due primarily to slope and exposure. Education and awareness of these two projects by the community is imperative. We hope you’ll join us.
During our presentation to the council, we played a 14-minute TED talk video that we encourage the entire community to view. The talk, “Why Wildfires Have Gotten Worse,” by Paul Hessburg, may be viewed at https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_hessburg_why_wildfires_have_gotten_worse_and_what_we_can_do_about_it?language=en.