Today's Sierra County Fire Preparedness Forum brings together members of the Sierra County community to address the ongoing danger of catastrophic fires in the region. While fires are a critical and necessary part of the life of the forests in Sierra County (and elseswhere), , in the current state of the forest, fires pose an acute threat to human life and property. The forum brings together people to share ideas on what is to be done.
The forum is an early-stage structure for community engagement to address shared challenges. Forum membership is voluntary and open. A successful forum provides a place for many voices to be heard, launches conversation, and identifies areas of agreement to build on, and disagreement to resolve. The forum neither decides nor advises, except where there is a consensus. It is not a Council.
In its 2014 Proclamation of Local Fire Emergency , the Sierra County Supervisors asked California's Governor to convene a Forum based on the 1997 Presidential Forum for Lake Tahoe. By this means Sierra County, and the other mountain and forest counties that joined the Sierra County initiative, sought to launch a process to address the longstanding (and continuing) crisis in the health of the forests, which all share.
While the Counties' Proclamations drew a significant and valuable state response, including the return to service of the Loyalton Cogen as a facility for the disposal of biomass removed from the forests in and beyond the Northern Sierra, and considerable discussion especially with the agencies and departments of the State of California, it has produced no Forum, and there is no single center for the development of a new policy called for by the County's resolution:
The Sierra County Fire Preparedness Forum has a close focus on the fire threats facing the local communities. But it need not confine itself to these challenges, however crititical they are. The larger challenge, of developing the long-term health of the forests, so that the fires that do come support the health of the forests, rather than destroying it with all its many communities, human and otherwise. Working again with its neighbors, in Plumas, Nevada, and the other mountain and forest counties, Sierra may grow from this and other seeds, the forest health future upon which all depend.
In its 2014 Proclamation of Local Fire Emergency , the Sierra County Supervisors asked California's Governor to convene a Forum based on the 1997 Presidential Forum for Lake Tahoe. By this means Sierra County, and the other mountain and forest counties that joined the Sierra County initiative, sought to launch a process to address the longstanding (and continuing) crisis in the health of the forests, which all share.
While the Counties' Proclamations drew a significant and valuable state response, including the return to service of the Loyalton Cogen as a facility for the disposal of biomass removed from the forests in and beyond the Northern Sierra, and considerable discussion especially with the agencies and departments of the State of California, it has produced no Forum, and there is no single center for the development of a new policy called for by the County's resolution:
The Sierra County Fire Preparedness Forum has a close focus on the fire threats facing the local communities. But it need not confine itself to these challenges, however crititical they are. The larger challenge, of developing the long-term health of the forests, so that the fires that do come support the health of the forests, rather than destroying it with all its many communities, human and otherwise. Working again with its neighbors, in Plumas, Nevada, and the other mountain and forest counties, Sierra may grow from this and other seeds, the forest health future upon which all depend.
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| Jeffrey Pine Seed Pod Portola, California May 31, 2019 |
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