Wildland fires can occur in residential development areas without disastrous loss of life, property and resources. But, recognizing the problem and knowing how to protect your family, home, property and your neighborhood before a fire happens, are the first steps to successfully becoming truly "firewise." The Firewise Communities Program offers both workshops and training and Web-based, interactive training geared toward homeowners, forestry professionals, firefighters and others on a variety of wildfire safety topics. Whether you are a homeowner looking for additional information for your Firewise program, or a fire safety professional eager to help neighborhoods become a part of the Firewise Communities/USA program, these courses will give you the tools you need to get you started.
Homeowner Course: Landscaping
The Firewise Landscaping course is designed for people living in wildland areas who make decisions about landscaping their homes. The course considers the issues of appropriate landscape designs, specific planting and pruning alternatives, and appropriate planting materials for interface/intermix fire environments. It has three parts: an Overview, Design/Installation and Maintenance. It also includes a virtual Firewise landscaping model you can use to visualize design alternatives. The course takes approximately three hours to complete.
Homeowners/Civic Leaders/Firefighters Course: Community Assessment
Conducting a Community Assessment in the Wildland/Urban Interface: Beginning the Firewise Process is a course for fire and forestry professionals and others who want to help residents of areas at risk from wildfire to make their homes safer. Taking this course provides you with a thorough understanding of how homes ignite during wildfires, how simple actions can greatly reduce home ignitions, and how community behavior change can create Firewise homes and communities. This course is broken into eight lessons; each takes 30 and 45 minutes to complete.
Firefighters Course: Safety
Firefighter Safety in the Wildland/Urban Interface addresses problems faced by structural and wildland firefighters when fighting fires, especially those threatening structures in the wildland/urban interface. An important goal is to expand your knowledge of firefighter safety and survival issues. The course has three parts: Understanding Fire Behavior in the WUI, Structure Protection Strategies in the WUI and Firefighter Safety in the WUI. The entire course takes approximately four hours to complete.
Location: National
Deadline: N/A
Contact Name: Firewise
Contact E-mail: http://www.firewise.org/Contact.aspx
Contact Phone: (617) 984-7486
Expiration: N/A
Region(s): National
Topic(s): Fire Behavior, Fuels, Hazard & Risk, Intelligence, Outreach, Planning, Safety, Social Science
Partner Site(s): N/A
Website: http://www.firewise.org/Courses-and-Training/Online-Courses.aspx