The Fire Safe Council For Monterey County and Wanda Vollmer of Peace of Mind Preparedness have developed a free workshop, Wildfire and You, to help inform everyone in Monterey County, including the County's seniors and those with disabilities and their relatives, friends, and caregivers, how they can prepare for wildfires before they start, to help protect lives and homes.
Wildfires have become an increasingly unnerving fact of life in California, and can pose great risks to anyone — however, recent wildfires have disproportionately taken the lives of seniors and those with disabilities.
The Wildfire and You workshop takes about 30 minutes to complete and can be taken at any time at no cost by going to this web page and following the simple instructions www.firesafemonterey.org/workshops.html.
Over 100,000 of Monterey County's residents live in the county's rural areas, which encompass about 1.6 million acres in County jurisdiction, largely covered with hazardous accumulations of wildfire fuels.
Fortunately, the recent wildfires in Monterey County have taken place during relatively benign weather conditions, without the unprecedented high winds experienced during recent wildfires in other counties. As bad as the losses and destruction were from recent wildfires in Monterey County, it could have been much worse.
There is still an opportunity to work to prepare Monterey County for wildfire, but that opportunity could end on any summer day with hot windy conditions. Best is to work to prepare now, without delay.
Development of the Wildfire and You workshop was funded with a generous grant from Community Emergency Response Volunteers of the Monterey Peninsula (CERV) and Listos California.
The focus of the Wildfire and You workshop is to help Monterey County residents prepare their property for wildfire by creating effective defensible space, reducing wildfire fuels, and by home hardening, helping homes and communities withstand the impacts of wildfires and safely evacuate when needed.
