Mountain Oaks Home Owners Association
MOHA - Colorado Springs
Firewise/Free Chipping
Did you know?
From Dave Luken, our Firewise representative for MOHA:
Homeowners, please keep track of your costs incurred and hours of work for all fire mitigation projects, including free chipping in July and October, as these can be applied as a credit to the entire HOA to continue our certification for next year. Hours and costs can be turned into Dave Luken.
Click Here for income tax guidelines:
Homeowners may want to contact their homeowner's insurance company and inform them they live in a Certified Firewise Neighborhood, as their insurance company may give them a discount on their annual premium.
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Firewise Presentation at 2025 Annual MOHA Meeting
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Dave Luken, our MOHA Fire Mitigation Point of Contact provides the following information for fellow homeowners:
2025 Annual Free Chipping Program
Free chipping week of July 14 and week of October 6. Thank you to the Colorado Springs Fire Department for helping our city be firewise! This year we have two dates for free pick up of your tree trimmings. You must be registered by July 11 to have your July trimmings picked up. You can register for one or both dates.
Registration is easy and takes less than 5 minutes. Click here to access the Colorado Springs Fire Department 2025 Chipping Registration Form. We are Broadmoor Bluffs/Mountain Oaks. You will also find information there on how to prepare your piles for pick up and size requirements. Piles must be curbside by Monday 8 am the week of pickup.
1. You must be registered to participate in the program.
2. Pile size limit is 5'x5'x5', woody limbs and branches only, up to 9 inches in diameter.
3. Piles must be stacked curbside (within 5 feet of the roadway) by 8:00 am Monday morning of our chipping week. Piles must be stacked neatly, with cut ends facing the road.
4. Addresses not registered WILL NOT BE PICKED UP.
5. Improperly stacked piles WILL NOT BE PICKED UP.
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The Colorado Springs Fire Department also provides a "Wildfire Mitigation Cost-Share Stipend Program" for residents who live in a "Wildfire Urban Interface (WUI), which we do. This program provides up to a $500 dollar for dollar match for those who apply and are approved on a first come, first served basis. The program is intended to assist homeowners in reducing wildfire risk to homes and structures with the removal of hazardous vegetation within 30' around the structures.
Please see the attached "Wildfire Mitigation Cost-Share Stipend Program" Information Sheet, as well as the attached List of Approved Tree Contractors.
Cost Share Stipend Information
****************************************************************************************************************************Performing Wildfire Mitigation on your property
Firewise Recommendations:
- Remove dead wood and downed trees.
- Do not clear cut area. Remove smaller trees and brush from under trees that are to remain.
- Do not remove root systems of the trees that have been cut down. This will help hold the soil nd prevent erosion.
- Stagger clumps of trees – so there is space between clumps and there is not a consistent pattern.
- Remove tree limbs up to 1/3 the height of the tree. This will prevent or reduce the possibility of ground fires setting fire to the tree limbs.
- For the grass in the area, it is recommended that in the fall, someone cut the grass with a weed whacker, leaving it as ground cover.
- Leaving a depth of 4 inches of chipped limbs and brush is acceptable because it suppress grass fire and maintains ground moisture.
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Colorado Springs Tree Services:
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I am pleased to report that the new evacuation software system has launched. We are partnering with City Communications, CSPD, OEM, E911 and others to provide an educational campaign and media blitz on this new resource. The tagline is COSReady, which contains 3 parts. Numbers 1 and 3, have been in place but will be reemphasized during the campaign. Number 2 is relative to the new system.
1- Sign Up for Alerts (https://member.everbridge.net/1772417038942752/new)
2- Know Your Zone (https://community.zonehaven.com/)
3- Make A Plan
This system will be for all Hazards, to include wildland, flooding, hazmat incidents, active shooters, etc. The city has been divided into over 600 unique and numbered zones. This will help our incident commanders (ICs) determine which zones to put on:
1. Evacuation Order- which means you should leave right now.
2. Pre-evacuation Warning, which means you should prepare and be ready to evacuate.
3. Shelter-In-Place notification, which means you stay where you are at until further notice.
The ICs can see the map and will be able to input the weather impact to see what zones are going to be impacted and to what extent. Once the zones are determined, an Administrator will support the notification process which typically takes about 2.5 to 3 minutes. A standard and consistent message will go out over the cellphone systems (Everbridge/IPaws), social media (Facebook, Twitter, Insta) and main stream TV and radio media. Citizens will see the zones and should be knowledgeable about the zone they live in, thus the Know Your Zone campaign as part of COSReady. Additionally, a link goes out via cellphone text which connects citizens and visitors to the Aware Site, where they can actually see what the event is, what zones are impacted and gather additional information. Note: PD who most likely will be handling the evacuation management, can see real time feeds on traffic flows, identify the best roads for evacuation, and send officers to the areas most congested or that need the most oversight.
The site is active now, and you can now go on to find your zone. We ask you to encourage your family members, friends and neighbors to “know their zone”, and to sign up for Peak Alerts.
Go to the COSReady site at https://coloradosprings.gov/ready to check things out.
We are the first community in Colorado to utilize this system. There are a number of other cities and counties coming on board in the future. In California where this system was first put into action, 37 out of 52 counties are now part of this system. We are excited for the new addition to our resources and feel it will have a positive impact on future operations.
More to come, but we wanted to give you all a heads-up! Please feel free to forward this information along to your communities.
Melissa Hoffman
Wildfire Mitigation Program Coordinator
Colorado Springs Fire Department
375 Printers Parkway
Colorado Springs, CO 80910
Office: 719.385.7493
Fax: 719.385.7334
“Sharing the Responsibility”