Red, White & Blue Fire to Recognize Local Communities for Wildfire Safety Efforts

Monday, January 04, 2010 - Breckenridge, CO

Red, White & Blue Fire District, along with the Colorado State Forest Service, will hold a recognition ceremony on Monday, January 4, 2010, at 1 p.m., to recognize six homeowner’s associations that recently achieved “Firewise Community” status.

Firewise Communities is a nationally-recognized program available to fire-prone communities that helps encourage and acknowledge actions that minimize home loss to wildfire. It uses a three-prong approach to bring together federal, state and local agencies to educate homeowners about wildfire risks specific to their area; the community then assesses its risk and creates its own network of cooperating homeowners which, in turn, identify and implement local solutions.

The six homeowner associations are: Shock Hill, Highlands Park, The Pines at Four O’Clock, Park Forest Estates, White Wolf and Summit Estates. Five of the associations are in the Town of Breckenridge limits, and one is in Summit County. These are the only communities in Summit County to achieve this national recognition.

“We are encouraged and proud that leaders from these homeowners associations took the initiative and action to promote and create defensible space around their homes as well as reducing wildfire danger in our community,” said Fire Chief Gary Green. “By working collaboratively on our community’s greatest risk, we are able to achieve success,’ he said.

The Shock Hill Association (SHA), located off of Ski Hill Road, initiated the local movement to become Firewise certified. John Quigley, Vice President of SHA, explained what this means to him. “This is a tremendous honor for our community to be nationally recognized for our homeowners’ efforts to create defensible space around our homes, and for our Association’s efforts to improve the forest health of our open space by removing dead trees and slash to reduce wildfire hazards,” he said.

The public is invited to attend the ceremony, located at their main station at 316 N. Main St., Breckenridge.

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Press Contact:
Capt. Kim Scott, PIO
cell: 970.485.4374
email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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