April was another big month for us as our second and third HOAs, Canyon Cove and Country Meadows, received Firewise USA recognition. That new recognition leads off the following list of major activities and accomplishments in April:
- Two more Oak Park communities received Firewise recognition from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Canyon Cove and Country Meadows achieved their new Firewise status, the second and third communities in Oak Park and the ninth and tenth in Ventura County, to do so. Congratulations to the Canyon Cove and Country Meadows Firewise teams.
- We were awarded an infrastructure grant almost a year ago, and we were just notified this week that Cal Fire will now begin to disburse the $26,130 grant to Oak Park Fire Safe Council. Further information will be coming on this as we work with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council regarding the phased disbursement of this award.
- We are beginning work with two more HOAs, Morrison/Sutton and Regency/Chambord, to achieve Firewise recognition. Both communities have identified their Firewise captains, which is key to beginning the process. Oak Park Fire Safe Council and the Ventura County Fire Department are working closely with them through the recognition process.
- The Center for Geospatial Science and Technology (CGST) is working on some final requested changes to an interactive map that will be available on our public website. This map will identify homeowners’ defensible space that needs to be mitigated and will provide a measuring tool to identify the boundaries of the defensible space for which Rancho Simi is responsible. We will be sharing this with Rancho Simi as well.
- We agreed with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council that it would provide our home wildfire assessments for now. The council will train Oak Park residents to do these assessments, so we won’t need to depend on an outside entity in the future. Several more assessments were performed this month.
- All three of the current Firewise Communities are applying for $1,000 grants from the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council for materials and labor to make their communities more fire resilient.
- We are actively reaching out to other HOAs and neighborhoods in Oak Park to work on their Firewise recognition. We have found that this is the gateway to improved fire resiliency for individual homes as well as the community. The California Department of Insurance also mandates that insurance companies provide a rate discount for community programs such as Firewise USA.
