Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 1
Item number 1 is to approve proclamation recognizing wildfire awareness events in Travis County during the months of April and May 2011.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, county Commissioners.
herschel.
I have a public information officer, chief jim lenardo, who is chair of the cafc wild land subcommittee.
we have before you a proclamation asking the court to recognize the danger of wildfire especially in Travis County at this time.
would you like to read the proclamation or would you like one of us do?
>> either way.
it reads: Travis County is a diverse and dynamic place to live, world and recreate, the vast appeal has led to extensive growth and development.
the result is an ever increasing urban and wild land interface.
whereas this provides ideal conditions for severe wildlife -- wildfire risk because of the habitat and prevalent species of plant growth typical for this region.
whereas as of April 4th, 2011, there have already been 585 structures lost and over 4,834 wildfires that have burned 580,190 acres in Texas.
whereas by applying fire-wise concepts, to landscapes and structures entire communities can drastically reduce the risk of loss from wildfire.
whereas public safety personnel work cooperatively and offer solutions to mitigate this risk and whereas the key to understanding the dangers of wildfire is through educationen an awareness and past experiences have demonstrated a well informed and prepared public can take actions to prevent fires from starting.
now therefore be it resolved that we, the Travis County Commissioners court, do hereby recognize wildfire awareness events in Travis County during the months of April and may 2011 and encourage all residents of Travis County to become fire wise.
>> all right.
well, I'll try this.
hopefully I'll just project.
>> that one on the end snaps off if you would like to hold.
>> Texas forest service, public information officer.
first of all I want to thank Travis County for sharing some of your fire responders with us.
we have some Texas intrastate fire management folks that have actually gone out west to help us with our fires and we've got 11 firefighters from Travis County, they are helping us at this moment.
one from oak hill, two from west lake, two from buda and two from Round Rock and we really appreciate their help and support out there.
in the past seven days, in addition to the statistics read off the proclamation, we've responded to 78 fires for 385,098 acres.
yesterday we had 12 of them for over 16,892 acres.
that's just the ones we have assisted on statewide, not counting the ones the locals have responded to.
we've got the transpecos out in west Texas.
the rock house fire is 80,000 acres with zero person containment.
we lost several homes in fort Davis.
the roper fire in brewster county, 25,000 acres also zero percent containment and hickland county 98%.
that's the only one we've got a good handle on.
the swinson is only 80% containment on that one and the other large one is kilo in gars counties for over 35,000 acres.
it's huge.
the impact this is having on the citizens is Texas is intense and we are spread so thin.
we have 25 other states helping us right now and we have over 750 firefighters helping with this event.
not counting the locals, just that we've brought in from other states.
and we can't do it by ourselves.
we're a small agency and rely heavily on the cooperators' assistance.
anything Travis County can do to help out within the county and beyond is greatly appreciated.
one of the things that I really want to bring to y'all's attention, and talking about the educational program.
we have town hall meetings, we're calling them town hall meetings that are going to get this ready, set program.
we're going to be sharing with the citizens that come are actually going to be customized for Texas.
one tonight in the west lake area.
within of my counterparts is coming back from midland today to help put this program on tonight.
we've got another one in Pflugerville on April 27th.
we've got one in lago vista on may 13th and another one in Austin on may 17th.
we've got four of them in Travis County within the next month coming up to try to get this information -- we would like to get one of these booklets into every household.
the ready part is to get prepared in advance.
what you can do to prepare your house and yard to reduce the risk of loss from wildfire.
the set is getting set to go when that fire is on the ground and moving across the landscape towards your home and community.
and go is the evacuation portion of this.
this helps people develop evacuation plans and to get out.
it covers the advanced preparedness, the exact preparedness at that day and the evacuation portion to try to help save lives and save homes.
this is what we're trying to get out in Travis County right now and we appreciate any help we can get to get this information out and share it with the citizens of Travis County.
thank you for your time.
>> thank you.
>> let me ask a question if you don't mind.
>> sure.
>> this is something that I've never witnessed this type of wildfire scenario that's happening not only in your area, but it's occurring throughout drought stricken counties in the state of Texas.
and, of course, I heard you state that you are getting support from 25 -- from 25 states, you have available 700 and some odd volunteers that are out there fighting.
a tough situation out there in west Texas.
my question to you is what can -- other than we're dealing with the resolution and, of course, we have also sent volunteers that have come from Travis County to help in this regard, what else may we possibly do as far as wanting to make sure that this particular information is given out?
you know, we have -- we have Travis County channel 17 access t.v.
here and folks sometimes go and look at channel 17 television as far as information educational-wise things as far as outreach.
I heard you mention several meeting places that you would like to get the word out on the preventive things, what you can do, prepare yourself, evacuation, the things you need to be aware of to decrease the type of encroachment from these type of fire hazards.
is there anything, outreach -- I mentioned the Travis County television for one source of outreach.
is there anything else that you and your crew have looked at as far as getting the word out other than having newer outreach meetings in different quadrants of the city?
>> yes, I did an interview with kxan and keye and kvue, but anything we can do to raise awareness that we do have a problem.
that just even keeps cigarette butts inside cars and driving around yesterday in Travis County I saw people pulling boats back and forth to the lake on weekend, to youing towis can cause sparks.
anything wen@nqqewk+ty,91no cart if the language we have posted today allow us to do some of the things as far as outreach.
we mentioned several other things, but, of course, outreach and getting persons educated I think is very critical in these drought condition times that we're experiencing throughout the majority of the state of Texas.
so I guess are we posted properly, judge, within this resolution if those type of things can take place to make sure that the connectivity as far as educating persons of these conditions?
is this posted --
>> posted to approve proclamation.
in terms of receiving advice from our guests we can do that and individually pass it on as we see fit.
>> be happy to help any way we can.
>> where can we get volumes of these for distribution?
>> we're trying to have some more printed up right now, but I believe I have this digitally and I can make that available if you want to -- because our budget is -- sure.
understood.
>> -- limited.
if you want want to help distribute these that would be wonderful.
>> we can distribute these to the homeowners associationsen neighborhood organizations and boy scouts.
>> we have cooperation at the state level but any at the county level would be another leverage.
>> I have a question for danny and the chief.
can we get these to our esds?
>> I think we haven't allowed our chief to speak because that might help.
>> the answer is yes, we do receive some of these and we have the pbf files.
we're putting our energy in cooperation with Texas for rest service.
the capital area fire chiefs association which is this this area of esds and Austin fire departments, we're coming to get these four meetings up and running.
we help get the locations.
they are working in cooperation with us on that.
they have already given us some stuff.
the locals have the stuff.
we have six or seven other brochures for different nichees.
you have to hit the target right and there's stuff for ranchers, stuff for arsonists.
our different divisions working with everyone together ready to hand out more stuff as the interest grows as the problem seems to be worsening as the drought is continuing.
we're not seeing any relief, any rain.
the weather patterns we're seeing in west and north Texas are starting to shift into central Texas.
that's creating a bit of a problem.
we are working on that diligently with these folks.
we've had lots of meetings with Texas forest service and we continue to push that information out.
any help from you guys getting this word out on your level would be very helpful from us.
and speaking as Commissioners to the community means a lot to the community about what about important process and what an important prevention item this is.
>> chief, if you would, I'd like to take an opportunity to bring this really close to home because I think a lot of people kind of take our firefighting efforts for granted.
they don't realize the challenges that come in with fighting a fire.
and one of the things that concerns me a lot particularly in western Travis County with the cedar and the very narrow roads that go down to homes that are at the end of a long road or even a short road, would you elaborate just briefly about the ability of a fire truck to get to a home that has a narrow road and whether or not it can even turn around?
because I think people even in west lake don't realize that a fire truck may not be able to really get to their house.
and with the winds we've had in the recent weeks, trying to fight a fire in confined areas like that is really challenging.
I think that might help, if you could elaborate, might help people realize they might be more at risk.
>> let me go back.
I've been a party to wild land fire fighting on a national level since I started in this business in the late 70s.
there's this misnomer that people have and in the west part of town or the east part out in the county that everyone get a fire truck at every house.
come protect my house.
we don't that.
we don't have the resources.
I'm here to tell you as the wild land coordinator for cafc, we're going everything to coordinate the resources, but even if we could get up the driveway, we have to tree age where we're going to put the you want and we have to continue to have safety in mind for firefighters to get them out.
if the road is overdrawn or whatnot, we may have to drive by that house even if we have those resources.
generally speaking, we have to move along, it's kind of a hop scotch thing following the fire through these subdivisions.
we do that for days on end sometimes like they are doing in west Texas.
and if they haven't taken care of their property prior, it makes it harder for us to protect that home and actually gets to the point we've done write-offs and I've done this a dozen times or more, we have to write off part of that subdivision and watch the homes burn because we can't get the units in there.
the work can't be done during the fire.
when the fire is coming through it's too late.
that's where this information is so critical for us to get out.
it's hard for us to get in and get out and it's a tough situation.
>> thank you.
>> in our review -- in our review of subdivisions, the preliminary plats and things of those nature, we attempt to be sure there are sufficient means of egress in and out of a subdivision, streets are wide and the turn radius is appropriate for the new fire apparatus to get n but the fire codes and other codes are limited to the public areas.
if your particular lot is four acres and you choose to build on the back side of that, we do not control how wide or how steep your driveway is.
we have no -- as a county authority, we don't have -- we can't mandate that.
but we do regulate as much as possible the grades, the turns, turn radius, the width of streets, hydrant placement and those type of things.
but the real danger then becomes on the private property.
and that is a personal choice of the property owner to choose to protect their property with the recommended fire wise methods and means or in their design with vegetation, those are all personal type things the public will have to take care of when it goes on private property.
two years ago esd 6 and the county fire marshal's office worked with channel 17, Commissioner Davis, and there is a -- about a three or four-minute film on wildfire awareness and dangers that is often run on channel 17.
>> okay, good.
crank it out.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
a couple of proclamations for you.
>> thank you for your service.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> when we call up item 2, the recommendation will be to leave the current outdoor burn ban in place, right?
it expires may 4th.
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