We're excited to share that our neighborhood is now an officially FirewiseUSA recognized community! This is a great step toward making our community safer and more resilient in the face of wildfire risk. 

But this is just the beginning. Recognition is easier to achieve than it is to maintain. To keep this status, everyone within our Firewise community will need to stay involved by reducing fuel on their properties and hardening homes against fire. Each year we will submit a sum of our efforts to the Firewise program to maintain our recognition. 

Aside from reducing wildfire risk to our community, there are other real benefits to our Firewise Recognition. For example, some insurance providers, including the California FAIR Plan, offer discounts for homes in certified areas. We'll be sharing more information soon about the different programs and discounts available to homeowners. You can read about additional benefits here.

To help support our communities’ ongoing efforts, we formed a nonprofit organization called Summit Redwoods Alliance. The goals of the nonprofit are to:

* Maintain our yearly Firewise recognition

* Support homeowners with resources and information about fire hardening

* Facilitate neighborhood-wide fuel reduction

* Accept donations to fund projects

We're building this for all of us. Together, we can make a real difference in protecting our homes and our community. More details will be coming soon, but for now, thank you to everyone who helped get us this far-and to those already stepping up to help with what's next.

We invite you to join us in celebrating our Communities achievement on Saturday, July 19th at the Patchen Christmas Tree Farm! We hope to see you there!

- Melody Woods Firewise Steering Committee

Ginny, Shirley, Dawn, Andrew, and Kelley