Wildland Residents Association Community Alert

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For the last two years, the Wildland Residents Association's San Marcos Pass Volunteer Fire Department has been hosting a radio show, Community Alert, in Santa Barbara, California hosted by Ted Adams and Mike Williams. Often live with listeners calling in, the show airs Tuesday's at 11:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., and then again on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. Community Alert airs on KZSB-AM 1290 and online at www.newspress.com.

President/ Executive Director of the Wildland Residents Association and Host of Community Alert, Mike Williams, explains, "We talk about a variety of issues as far as preparedness and emergency planning goes including fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, disease. We talked a lot about the pandemic when that was a big issue here. And how to prepare for evacuations and just emergencies in general."

Incorporated in 1982 under the State of California, the Wildland Residents Association is a non-profit  public benefit organization. Grant money from the Aware and Prepare Initiative is used to defray costs, but both Ted and Mike host the show for free.

According to Mike Williams, the show is co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council and they also received a grant from the California Fire Safe Council to represent to the fire safe councils throughout California. The California State Firefighters' Association and the Fire Services Training Institute are also co-sponsors of the show.

When FDNNTV visited the studio, the guest speaker was Captain Glenn Fidler of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. Fidler was speaking about fire prevention and defensible space, an important topic since the area has been devastated by two large wildfires in less than two years. "Defensible space is one of the most important aspects of fire prevention for any type of community, whether you live in a city area, a rural area or an urban interface," explained Captain Fidler.

Defensible space actually began with the idea of keeping a structure fire from escaping into the wildland. Now, fire crews attempt to keep a wildland fire at a natural rate of spread without burning structures. Fidler added, "We have a one hundred foot defensible space requirement for all structures, anywhere you live in the Santa Barbara County fire jurisdiction."

Captain Glenn Fidler claimed that Santa Barbara County Fire Department is trying to enlighten the people of their community. Like other departments in Southern California, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department is behind "Ready! Set! Go!", a public education program that can reduce life and property loss from wildfires with help from citizens.

"One of the things we have going for us is the amount of fires that we have had recently, people are very receptive to listening and learning, so we've held a lot of community meetings, really trying to push this 'Ready! Set! Go!' program," Glenn remarked. "When people are aware of a program, they have a pamphlet, they can go through, look at it, meet certain criteria, figure everything out, and it will really help them in a stressful situation to just fall back on their training."

The "Ready! Set! Go!" program includes a checklist and a Personal Wildfire Action Plan. Early evacuation is key, according to Captain Fidler. "That way firefighters can get in, do their jobs, we don't have to worry about life safety, because life safety trumps everything." With large fires and other disasters facing the area, listenership of the show continues to grow.

Host Mike Williams expressed, "People are participating. We know that through email, through phone calls and people we meet on the street. People are paying attention." As an outgrowth of the show, Ted Adams and Mike Williams write a newspaper column that appears every Saturday in their local daily newspaper, the News-Press. Through that, they are able to expand their reach and inter-relate the radio show and the column.

For more information about the Wildland Residents Association and the Community Alert radio show, please visit http://www.wildlandresidents.org/.



Author:Barbara Brooks - FDNNTV.com, Renée Marquart - Text