Collaboration is Key in Mitigation Success
What do you do when your zone of responsibility covers five counties and you must design and implement a new fire prevention program? This is what I was faced with when I arrived in the Northwest Region of Washington State Department of Natural Resources as the new regional Fire Prevention Coordinator in April 2002.
That year was a very heavy fire year with heavy losses in the urban interface. I spent more than 80 days on fires that year and every incident had a WUI component to it. I began to see the need for improved support to communities in the urban interface and began to formulate a vision for that support.
To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. I had begun to work with two communities, advising sparkplugs and trying to lend assistance where I could. I had a small amount of National Fire Plan grant dollars for community assistance, but no additional staff. It was just me and I realized I could spend all my time working with those two communities. But what about all the others that were identified in the risk assessment we conducted that first year? At that time, Firewise Communities/USA was coming online. It provides a framework and process to guide communities to mitigate wildfire risk.
I had a program but I needed help. And this is where it became interesting. I couldn't be everywhere at once and I couldn't support more than a couple of communities at a time, but there were so many that resided in high-hazard areas. So I took my own advice and started small.
I had forged a strong relationship with the Skagit County (Wash.) Fire Marshal's office and Fire Warden Fred Wefer, who was well established in the area, had many connections and was dedicated to fire prevention. Wefer also is fire chief of Whatcom County (Wash.) Fire Districts #6 and #9. Over coffee one day, he and I started to discuss what it would be like if we had more assistance from other agencies. We talked for several hours about what it would be like if we could bring together all agencies that were involved in fire suppression and prevention in the region, what could we accomplish if we were all involved and aligned in purpose.
That discussion turned into our vision. With our vision in hand, we set about bringing the group together. We identified all the agencies that were involved in fire suppression, prevention and education in the region and started to discuss the possibilities with them. In doing so, concerns of time and budget crept into the conversations, along with “what do I get out of this” came from our future partners. We assured the partners that we were all in this together and we would only address issues that were aligned with the partner agencies missions. For example, Skagit Conservation District's main focus is education, which aligns with fire prevention. In the beginning, the district began to incorporate fire prevention education into its existing programs. Now they are the main Firewise Communities/USA coordinators in the region and are perpetuating the collaborative model we developed across Washington State with Fire Plan funding.
We brought a group of cooperating agencies together, focused on projects that were aligned with agency missions and then the magic began. Now all of a sudden, when there was a need from an agency cooperator or a community, we had resources. When a group comes together and works together for the collective good, amazing things happen.
The collaborative model we developed during this project included:
- Identifing the need for change.
- Formulating a vision.
- Starting small.
- Identifying partners.
- Communicating vision.
- Soliciting participation.
- Identifying a project with high likelihood of success.
- Collaborating.
- Sharing the rewards while having fun.
- Realizing the synergy and expanding.
Synergy refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents. It is so powerful and in this case caught the attention of Skagit County Commissioner Don Munks who became a strong supporter of Firewise efforts and subsequently sponsored a countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan. This is what Wefer and I saw just a few short years ago. Collaboration is key. And with it comes success. Understand the model, use it to your advantage and you too can see your vision become reality.
