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 October, as these can be applied as a credit to the entire HOA to contiue our certification for next year. Hours and costs can be turned into Dave Luken.

Click Here for income tax guidelines:

Dave Luken is our Firewise contact with the Colorado Springs Fire Department. Homeowners may want to contact their homeowner's insurance company and inform them they live in a Certified Firewise Nieghborhood, as their insurance company may give them a discount on their annual premium.

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2024 Free Chipping!

Dave Luken, our MOHA Fire Mitigation Point of Contact, attended the Colorado Springs Fire Department's Annual Fire Mitigation Conference on Saturday 9 March 2024 and provides the following information for fellow homeowners:

1. The 2024 Neighborhood Chipping Schedule has been released, and our neighborhood is scheduled for the weeks of 22 July and 14 October 2024 (see attached 2024 Chipping Schedule). Some highlights to remind homeowners of as to requirements to successfully participate in this program are as follows:

    a. You must be registered to participate in the program. 
    b. Pile size limit is 5'x5'x5', woody limbs and branches only, up to 9 inches in diameter.
    c. Piles must be stacked curbside (within 5 feet of the roadway) by 8:00AM Monday morning of our chipping week. Piles must be stacked neatly, with cut ends facing the road.
    d. Addresses not registered WILL NOT BE PICKED UP.
    e. Improperly stacked piles WILL NOT BE PICKED UP  
Please see the "PREPARE FOR WILDFIRE NEIGHBORHOOD CHIPPING" Information Sheet for detailed information and registration instructions.

2. 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.

See Chipping Schedule

We are Broadmoor Bluffs. Our pickup dates are July 22 and October 14. Register at coswildfireready.org (select "prepare", then "Neighborhood Chipping Program." Or call 719-385-7493. Or email csfdwildfiremitigationscetionsmb@coloradosprings.gov. Piles must be curbside on Monday of the chipping week.

See Chipping Instructions

Approved Tree Contractdors 2024

Cost Share Stipend Information 2024

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Good morning Champions from Bailey Horton
February 2024

The Wildfire Mitigation Section would like to inform you that grant funding for stipends and project work is available. The Stipend Program provides grant funding to homeowners who hire licensed contractors that are approved to work with the Wildfire Mitigation Section to complete wildfire mitigation work on their property. Through this program a dollar-for-dollar match up to $500 is offered for wildfire risk reduction activities such as hazardous tree and brush removal, and removal of dead and dying limbs on trees within the first thirty feet (30’) of the home. Participants must contact our office prior to initiating any physical work. The Wildfire Mitigation Section cannot reimburse residents for previous work completed or reimburse residents for doing work on their own property. If interested, please have residents in your communities contact Bailey Horton at 719-385-7348 or Bailey.Horton@coloradosprings.gov. Please know that the grant funding is first come-first serve, and locations of funds may be subject to change as additional grant funding is received throughout the year. Additionally, attached is a copy of the licensed contractors approved to work with the Wildfire Mitigation Section.  

If your community has an area of concern, the Wildfire Mitigation Section helps facilitate project work across the wildland urban interface. Project work focuses on hazardous tree and brush removal and removing dead and dying limbs on trees on a larger scale. Projects can vary from several acres to hundreds of acres in size. This work may be contracted by a licensed tree contractor or can be mitigated by employees with the Wildfire Mitigation Section. If you have any areas that may qualify as project work, and you would like to see some mitigation work completed, please contact Cory Ashby at 719-385-7281 or Cory.Ashby@coloradosprings.gov.

The Wildfire Mitigation Section would like to thank you for your continued support and participation in sharing the responsibility to reduce wildfire risk to your homes and communities.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Thank you,
Bailey Horton|
Wildfire Mitigation
Sr. Administrative Assistant

Colorado Springs Fire Department
375 Printers Parkway=
Colorado Springs, CO 80910
Office: 719.385.7348

Fax: 719.385.7334

“Sharing the Responsibility”

“The mission of the Colorado Springs Fire Department is to provide fire, emergency, and prevention services with professionalism, compassion, and excellence.

List of 2024 approved Tree Contractors (download)

Funding Guidelines (download)

****************************************************************************************************************************From: Jessica McIntire, Wildfire Mitigation Program Coordinator

This notification is to confirm that the Firewise application for Mountain Oaks has been approved for the next year. This certificate expires at the end of 2024 and will need to be renewed in October of 2024 to remain in good standing. In the next year, we encourage you to implement the action plan items for your community. This includes dissemination of wildfire mitigation educational materials, identification of common areas in need of wildfire mitigation work, hosting an annual meeting to present wildfire mitigation information, and participation in CSFD’s neighborhood chipping program. CSFD can assist in all action items.

If you have any additional questions, please let us know. Thank you for participating in the Firewise USA program and all your hard work to reduce your community’s risk to wildfires. Thanks. Jessica

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Performing Wildfire Mitigation on your property
Firewise Recommendations:

1. Remove dead wood and downed trees.
2. Do not clear cut area. Remove smaller trees and brush from under trees that are to remain.
3. Do not remove root systems of the trees that have been cut down. This will help hold the soil and prevent erosion.
4. Stagger clumps of trees – so there is space between clumps and there is not a consistent pattern.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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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COSReady- New Evacuation Software System From:
From: Hoffman, Melissa <Melissa.Hoffman@coloradosprings.gov>

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”