Colorado Springs Fire Department bringing back community educational meetings on wildfire risk
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Colorado Springs Fire Department is bringing back its Town Hall series that's meant to educate the community about the risks of wildfires and how to be prepared.
Throughout the summer, the department is holding a series of Living with Wildfire Town Halls that will be neighborhood-specific.
"When we build homes into that natural scape, we've now added a lot of unique problems to the forest itself to allow it to do what it can do," CSFD Community Education Outreach Supervisor Sunny Smaldino said. "Combustible fuels, cars, and people. So we need to protect the home and respect where we're living in making sure we're doing our part in sharing that responsibility to make sure everyone stays safe."
The meetings will cover how to mitigate and prepare your home for wildfire both inside and outside, how to create an emergency wildfire action plan, and knowing when and how to evacuate. Which includes how to sing up for emergency notifications, and knowing your evacuation zone.
"We're reminding everyone that everything that turned green turns brown," Smaldino said. "When it's dried out it has a high propensity to catch fire. Today is one of those days, we're in a red flag warning, things are very dry around here. Not a lot's greened up and we've had a lot of dry windy weather. So that adds to the fire concern that things can spread very quickly."
The meetings will be in a conversation-style format to allow residents to ask questions. They will be held in multiple neighborhoods that have been identified as having high wildfire risk. All of which have their neighborhood chipping program.
The meeting Tuesday night starts at 6:30 p.m. at Pulpit Rock Church on Austin Bluffs Parkway.
If you can't make it, it'll be streamed live on Facebook and will be posted afterward online.
There will be six meetings throughout the summer.
