Helen Bulwik, resident lead, had this to share:
Crownridge HOA is a community of 152 homes in the Oakland Hills, adjacent to Merritt College, and bordering Campus, View Crest, and Ridgemont Drives. As an HOA we already have relatively stringent landscaping, tree, and vegetation rules.
However, we learned quickly from the many homeowner insurance cancellations that we were experiencing that this was not enough.
The HOA quickly responded by adding a Fire Safety Advisory Committee to do the necessary research. Fortunately, not long into the process we learned about the Oakland Fire Council which led us to Firewise USA and then to Joelle Fraser. We all agreed, we must work toward becoming a Firewise recognized community and establishing a three year plan.
Joelle quickly became our partner and guru to help us strategize and prioritize what we needed to do. Beginning with a community assessment workshop, attended by more than a third of our homeowners, we quickly focused on Zone 0 requirements and educating our entire community on this. Immediately we saw the effects of this with an
increased effort around vegetation management, vents being replaced with ember resistant vents, trees being cut back from homes, and wood siding being replaced with fiber cement siding.
Four months into these efforts we had a very successful walk through with OFD members, the Firewise Council, and a number of our community homeowners helping to facilitate the walk through. We were honored to be recognized as a Firewise Community on July 3.
The (NFPA) Firewise USA® recognition program was designed to help residents learn about wildfire risks and provide a self-directed, collaborative framework for neighbors to work together to reduce these risks by engaging in fuel reduction and home hardening activities.
Oakland Firesafe Council is encouraging Oakland neighborhood groups to join the growing network of Firewise USA® sites from across the nation by taking ownership in preparing and protecting their homes and communities against the threat of wildfire. LEARN MORE