Posted on:  Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Colestin's name (finally spelled correctly!) makes the news:  See the Sunday, November 16th, 2008 edition of The Mail Tribune for reporter Paul Fattig's article, entitled "Drop the 'e' and keep your hands up where we can see them: It's Colestin, not Colestine; got it?" or use the following link:
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081116/NEWS/811160311

Notice to Firefighters:  Specialized training will be available for those interested:
On November 5th, 2008, the ODF announced that S-203, Introduction to Incident Information, will be taught March 16-20, 2009, at Central Oregon Community College's Redmond Campus. See Firefighter Training for further info.

Also, CRFD's Safety Committee has developed a Driving Policy Agreement for those driving our District's Emergency Response vehicles. This document must be signed by all participating volunteers before they can be permitted to drive our vehicles.  More info.

FALL/PRE-WINTER SEASON REMINDERS:

If you haven't done it yet, please clean your woodstove stacks and/or chimneys!
See Stoves and Flue Fires: Prevention and Handling for further info.

CLEAR DRIVEWAYS AND ACCESS ROADS THIS FALL:  Trim back or remove branches or trees near or over driveways or access roads, to eliminate potential hazards BEFORE fire situations or winter snow loads make them dangerous.

Caution Reminder:  Again: If power drop lines are involved, call us first. Power companies are NOT responsible for these - property owners are - yet drop lines are dangerous and need special handling. We will try to assist you to locate a qualified professional to do it.

MORE INFO: The recent Jan.-Feb. 2008 issue of The Colestin Valley Buzz community newsletter featured an excellent article explaining electrical drop lines and safety issues:
Trees and Electrical Lines Don't Mix!   (PDF format)

Other Home Safety Reminders:

• Do NOT leave home with the clothes dryer still on. Overheating is an all-too-common problem.
  
• To lessen this fire danger, clean your dryer filters often, and clean the dryer duct at least once a year.
  
• Finally, make sure that all electrical appliances are turned off before you leave your residence for any length of time.

What would you do in a fire emergency? Your local fire district has a plan. Check it out on our Colestin-Hilt Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) page.

Preparedness and prevention is your best defense.  For further information, see our Home and Personal Safety page, or call us at (541) 488-1768.

See our Contact Information for our Emergency phone numbers (base station, alternates). Do you have these numbers handy, where you'll be able to find them during an emergency?? They should be posted near, or stored in, your phone(s) for easy, immediate access.

QUICK TAKES:

• Get the LATEST WEATHER FORECAST for the SOUTHERN OREGON & SISKIYOU MOUNTAINS region using links on our Weather & Fire Weather page. For weather warning updates, check our region on the National Weather Service's website, at: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mfr/.  (Special Warning links are on the right.)

• Check out the new website of the Rogue Valley Fire Prevention Co-op.

• Will you be doing any landscaping on your property? Check out the OSU Extension Service's new brochure, "Fire-Resistant Plants for Oregon Home Landscapes," available online, and from Jackson County's OSU partnership office, the Southern Oregon Research & Extension Center (SOREC), at 569 Hanley Road, Central Point OR 97503;  Phone: (541) 776-7371 Fax: (541) 773-7373;  Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.

• The March 5th, 2008, CRFD Fundraiser - BENEFIT FILM SHOWING of "Searchers 2.0," Alex Cox's new film, was a huge success. Read more.

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Planned Community Wildfire Meetings are part of countywide wildfire protection. Discussion topics include information you need to live safely in wildfire country, the fire planning process, how your neighborhood can be more wildfire safe, and meeting your local fire service providers. Representatives from local Jackson County Fire Districts, Oregon Department of Forestry, Rogue River/Siskiyou National Forest, and Medford BLM attend these meetings.

For information about any currently planned community meetings, contact:

Randy Iverson, Fire Chief Jackson County Fire District #3 (541) 826-7100
Brian Ballou, Fire Prevention Specialist, Oregon Dept. of Forestry (541) 664-3328
Neil Benson, Jackson County Integrated Fire Plan (541) 482-4682
Chris Chambers, Wildfire Fuels Reduction Coordinator, Ashland Fire & Rescue (541) 552-2066

View ODF's September, 2005, News bulletin as a pdf file.
(This requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher, FREE if you need to download it.)

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The WEST WIDE ENERGY CORRIDOR DPEIS  [Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement]:  

UPDATE:  In August, 2008, the BLM's Medford district office published a "Record of Decision and Resource Management Plan" for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument which includes information indicating that the energy corridor under discussion has been sited near the Klamath area and to the east of Ashland instead of running through our valley. Copies of this document are available from the BLM at its Medford District Office, 3040 Biddle Rd., Medford, OR., 97504.

The following concerns CRFD's position on the federal West-wide Energy Corridor DPEIS (Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement), concerning the 3,500-foot wide power corridor that could have run directly through our district. The public comment period on the draft plans ended on February 14th, 2008.

At the January, 2008, Board meeting, Lisa [Buttrey] provided the Board with background information and maps, pointed out issues of concern, and suggested talking points about this project.

The law allowing for the creation of this project was passed in 2005; the plan itself was released in mid-November of 2007. The plan is to have a 2/3rds-mile-wide pipeline/power-line corridor in the Valley. A number of these corridors are proposed throughout the west to handle the power sources (propane, gas, etc.) that is needed to keep up with increasing fuel needs in the country.

After discussion at the January meeting, the Board took the position that this area is not the best to locate this project. Not only are there environmental and geological concerns, but also the financial costs of going through the Siskiyou Mountains would be astronomical. Areas of eastern Oregon, which are flat and uninhabited, would be a far better place to locate the project.

The Board passed a motion directing the fire district, as the local agency, to send a letter outlining these concerns, as the project is currently proposed. Peggy Moore, as the Board Chair, was appointed to write the letter on behalf of the District.

The CRFD's letter in response to the West Wide Energy Corridor DPEIS follows:

January 20, 2008

West-wide Energy Corridor D[P]EIS
9700 S Cass Avenue – Bldg 900, Mail Stop 4
Argonne, IL 60439

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At our January 18th Board of Directors meeting, we passed a unanimous motion to provide written comments on the proposed Corridor (#4-247) through the Siskiyou Crest from Oregon into California. As the fire protection agency that is responsible for this area (for both fire and emergency medical) we STRONGLY oppose locating the corridor in this area.

There are a variety of reasons for our concerns but we believe the environmental, geological and financial arguments are the most salient and deserve your focused attention.

. The Colestin Valley and Siskiyou Pass area are well known as unstable in terms of their geology. Siskiyou literally means “moving mountain”. Slumps, shifts and collapses are fairly frequent in the area. As a result of one of these natural occurrences the Colestin Valley must now employ a receiver to rebroadcast telephone signals because the cable was rendered unusable by earth movement along its route.

. Interstate 5 is a vital transportation highway from Mexico to Alaska. Many of the trucks using this route on a daily basis carry toxic wastes, including nuclear waste. In addition, essential supplies of all kinds are hauled on this route day and night. Accidents happen frequently, sometimes closing the highway or rending one lane or another impassable.

. This particular stretch along Interste 5 (proposed corridor #4-247) is the longest stretch of 6% grade on the interstate system. Along with instability and bottleneck problems, the expense of putting lines across the Siskiyou Pass would be enormous. There are certainly locations in the state of Oregon that are flat, have far less interstate traffic and reside in more geologically stable environments. Areas in sparsely populated Eastern Oregon might be a consideration.

. The proposal, as we understand it, will make the Klamath River dam substation a destination for the proposed energy corridor. In doing so, you are targeting a substation connected to a dam that may soon be dismantled when court-ordered priority concerns for Klamath River salmon prevent re-licensing of Klamath River dams.

. The energy corridor segment, which is proposed for California’s Jenny Creek Falls, is a Redding BLM area of critical environmental concern.

We appreciate that when notified by many concerned citizens you moved the original 3,500 foot energy corridor out of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, but we still believe that for the reasons stated above, putting it in this region at all is a serious mistake.

We are a small, entirely volunteer fire district that, for 25 years, has provided needed fire and emergency medical services to the residents of our community. We simply do not have the resources, nor are more likely to appear, to support a crisis occasioned by a “mega” corridor .The location of our area makes it difficult (and at times impossible) for outside agencies to respond in a timely fashion.

We believe, once these facts are reviewed and the costs of locating the corridor in this area thoroughly researched that [the desirability of] finding a more geologically friendly, more cost effective and less populated traffic area will become clear.

We would be happy to provide further information to you on this matter. Thank you for your attention to our concerns and we hope that you will find a more hospitable location for this project.

Sincerely yours,

Peggy A. Moore
Chairperson
Colestin Rural Fire District
Board of Directors

c. Chief Avgeris
Board

The comment period ended February 14th, 2008. Thank you to all those of you who submitted your comments to the West-wide Energy Corridor D[P]EIS planners.

For further information, see the West Side Energy Corridor website:

http://corridoreis.anl.gov

For a more complete, easy-to-understand summary of the plan as it may affect us locally, together with issues to consider, maps, and further information, see the (PDF-format) article "West-wide Energy Corridors Routes Planned," published in the Jan.-Feb. 2008 issue of The Colestin Valley Buzz, and re-published here with publisher Lisa Buttrey's permission.

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In June, 2005, the Fire Plan Committee (John Ames, Elaine Shanafelt, and Lisa Buttrey) completed and released the Colestin-Hilt Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) that was in the works for over a year. In addition to a public presentation of the main points of the plan by Committee Chair and Coordinator Lisa Buttrey at the community barbeque on Saturday, June 18th, the plan is now available in detail here on our site, through our Colestin-Hilt Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) page.

"The completed plan," according to Lisa Buttrey, "has an Intro section, a Description section, a brief 'Risks' section, and finally the meat of the document in the last section, 'The Action Plan,' followed by the 'Appendices.' "The Action Plan gives detailed ideas for things to do and calls for volunteers to do them. [We] hope to get a few 'Action' items assigned to willing takers (from outside the fire department proper!)."

The Plan has an enormous wealth of information in it, and reflects a tremendous amount of time, extensive research, many meetings with other fire agency and county officials, and hard work. The result is a document that provides a working plan of action for our community to pro-actively achieve a much better level of fire prevention and protection and disaster preparedness than we have ever known. We are also now in compliance, ahead of schedule, and coordinated with the County's new regional fire plan. Check out the Plan on our CWPP page.

Also of interest are some very interesting articles that were edited out of the final CWPP: "Geology of the Districts," a summary by local resident Russell Juncal, and according to Lisa, "very readable for all residents." The second is "Fire Regimes, Fire History and Forest Conditions in the Klamath-Siskiyou Region: An Overview and Synthesis of Knowledge, by Evan J. Frost and Rob Sweeney. Lisa states that this is "a scientific paper, quite lengthy at 59 pages, but full of info about fire history, fire regimes, suppression history, logging impact on fire, etc." A third article that was not considered part of the official plan but that is also relevant is a Homeowner's Safety Checklist from the Fire Safe Council. All of these articles are now available through our CWPP page as well.

Josephine County's Plan, by comparison: On January 18, 2006, the Oregon Dept. of Forestry announced in a press release that Josephine County's Integrated Fire Plan has been awarded statewide recognition: "Josephine County was recently chosen to receive the 2005 Partners for Disaster Resistance and Resilience Outstanding Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan. Josephine County was recognized for the collaborative planning effort that resulted in the Josephine County Integrated Fire Plan..."   To learn more about how our neighboring county has prepared a fire plan that has now been recognized throughout the state of Oregon, read the full text of ODF's Josephine County Integrated Fire Plan press release (Jan. 18, 2006).

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After nearly a two-year wait while CDF built the engine for us, and after outfitting it with parts, our long-awaited FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)-financed structure fire engine, Engine No. 44-13,was finished and put into full-time service in the fall of 2004. It is housed at Station No. 1 at Colestin, in the center of the district.  Photos and more info.

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During part of the 2004 fire season, Colestin and Hilt volunteers helped staff the Hornbrook CDF Station. The proceeds from that effort enabled the Hilt Department to procure a new rescue rig (Hilt Rescue Vehicle 44-41). Photo on Vehicles page.

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