Contributed by Jim Floyd, resident lead.
The Sayre/Saroni Firewise Neighborhood consists of 47 homes near the intersection of these two streets. We were spurred to action in the wake of the devastating SoCal fires a year ago. At that time we saw posters by the nearby CABS Firewise group that introduced us to the Oakland Firesafe Council effort. Discussions with Joelle and CABS members were very inspiring and motivated us to join in!
Neighbors in our community had already developed relatively strong social connections but this was our first effort at actually organizing. Those previous connections proved invaluable in gaining participation and by the time we formally applied in the summer, we had 30+ participants. Our core team of six developed somewhat organically and we have a very complementary group that works well together.
Joelle was absolutely crucial in guiding us through the process. In particular, the site walk around was a key step in building momentum as we had residents from 10 homes that were able to participate. The expert team Joelle assembled were very encouraging and helped to turn the initial discussions into a real project. We received notification of formal recognition in July and have been tracking progress since.
In our first six months, over 200 hours have been invested working on the risk reduction elements in our Action Plan and we’re making steady progress on the home hardening and Zero Zone elements.
We also organized an Emergency Preparation neighborhood meeting where we distributed OFSC materials on planning, notification, routes, go bags, and special precautions for children, pets and others to 20 neighbors.
Additionally we developed a website to act as a resource for the neighborhood.
A challenge for us has been to understand that ‘participation’ in the Firewise Neighborhood encompasses a wide range of actual action. Many neighbors have extremely limited free time, so the core team has focused on actions that can reduce the most risk for the lowest effort.
Though our primary goal is risk reduction, the majority of our neighbors are on the FAIR Plan and so an important driver for our efforts has also been to manage insurance issues. And, as others have noted, these efforts are helping to build better ties among neighbors and an overall stronger community. We are thankful to be a part of this effort.