CalFire 2018 Grants for FY 2019

There are funds available from CalFire for community fire prevention.

http://calfire.ca.gov/fire_prevention/firepreventiongrants

The application's due date is December 19th. Through a series of steps the grants are awarded Sept 2019. The grants must be completed by March 15, 2022. One can make annual requests and stagger the work/re-embursement over the span of a few years.

Among the eligible grantees are water districts, such as the Butano Water Company

The types of things which can be done are

Hazardous Fuel Reduction
Fire Prevention Education
Fire Prevention Planning

see the above link for details and examples

The general model is incremental payment with proof of milestone, but non profits can request advance payments.

Exploring activities within the Water Company's remit

Yes, by section

Hazardous Fuel Reduction
- Vegetation clearance in critical locations - on BWC owned lots, or with permissions
- removal of ladder fuels - on BWC owned lots, or with permission
- Selective Tree Removal
- Modification of vegitation adjacent to roads
- reduction of fuel loading around hydrants, staging areas, and water drafting
- purchase of fuel removal equipment.
- remove of DEAD and DYING trees ( under various restrictions)
- green waste bin days, chipping days

Fire Prevention Education
- workshops, meetings, collaterial & educational activities. ( this could cover some of the printing costs we've been picking up on our own)

Fire Prevention Planning
- Mapping; for example duplicating Ari's gear to accelerate the CalFire Canyon Mapping
- Creation of Community Wildfire Protection Plan ( probably a good idea )
- Development of Evacuation Plans ( back to Mapping )
- Development of the various Logging / Thinning plans
  - paying foresters for their expertise, for example.

Just No from CalFire

 Purchase of capital equipment greater than $100,000.
 Installation, creation, upgrade, or maintenance of fire protection features, such as roads, bridges, structure’s or water storage facilities.
 Any project submitted by a for profit company or corporation.
 Projects or activities with indirect costs greater than 12%.
 Projects or activities utilizing CAL FIRE staff without corresponding reimbursements or requests seeking funding for services already provided by CAL FIRE.
 Removal of dead and dying trees that do not pose a threat to public health and safety.

Options?

remember, we're still allowed to sell timber as part of the fuel reduction projects.
apply for cleanup funds for areas around hydrants and an identified 'water draw' ( creek areas )
apply for cleanup funds for BWC owned lots, to served as 'educational example' as well.
Apply for development of Evac Plans, or Community Wildfire Protection Plans
Equipment? chain saws, loppers, etc. Some stashed for emergency use?
Mapping - our own gear so we can back-fill the CalFire / Ari mapping project w/out having to co-ordinate with SSEO

Progress Log ( most recent first )

Divide and Conquer Dec 9

re-review Cale Fire 'Fire Prevention Grant Program Procedural Guide 2018-2019'
- create sub-pages for application items in wiki in progress
contact Butanoids wrt deliverables / elements
- Catherine - stamped memo of approval ( get exact wording ) from board granting Casey the lead role for the purposes of this grant in progress
- Ethan - get costs of rental of boxes. in progress
- Rob and Ken - get estimates for Chipper purchase in progress
ack, build Mantis structure for this, just as a to do list
Investigate "at risk communities" designation for Pescadero / Butano Canyon

Board meeting Dec 8

Butano Water Company Board approves the idea. Generous offers of help.

Casey: I'm not quite sure where to focus proposal. Frankly there is a lot of things we could ask for but are not prepared to ask for, given our time frame. The trick is that we're constrained to Fire issues - road, buildings, bollards, fire hydrant fittings and other infrastructure improvements are not allowed. (AFAIK, will review.) Also need to review the actual 'structure of the organization to receive grants' bits. The Procedural Guide is pretty clear that we need to be of a subset of organization types, or to be allied with an organization type.

High Priority Items

improve access via road system
1. clearing fuel areas around hydrants, and water draws
"Plan" - a Neighborhood Forestry Plan ( <- general phrase ) leads to a lot of possibilities for granting. however we don't have one.
1. Casey is pretty sure that we don't have time to get the bids from Forestry People to put into a proposal

groveling over data in CalFire website Dec 5-8

Casey identifies items to present to the BCMWC Board.

Bootstrapping ID Dec 5

A few days later another email arrived with a NIFC ID and temporary password. This ID is used to do the grant work flow. Part of what has to happen is to define the geographic area the Proposal will address.

http://www.arcgis.com/home/index.html

ID	password	security question answer
casey.dunn_nifc	butan04yn0n	Cooper

http://www.arcgis.com/home/index.html

When this account was created an invitation was extended to a group called 'Fire Prevention Grants FY18-19.' The accompanying letter asked for a survey to be completed, and for a bit of GIS mapping to be done. The survey is simply contact information. The mapping involves using ARCGIS ( Casey's used this before ) to mark the general region ( Butano Canyon ) and then specific spots. Of course CalFire understands that some grants won't have 'specific work areas.'

ID request Dec 1

Casey applied for a 2018 Fire Prevention grant application project number on the first-day-he-knew-about-it and the last-day-one-could-apply-for-the-darn-thing. That would be November 20, 2018.

The request was made on behalf o the the Water Company, which is a 503(c). Is it a 'water district' as well?

That request was granted Dec 3, 2018 around 8 in the morning! amazing.

ID	Who	what
18-FP-CSU-1140	Butano Water Company	Butano Canyon Fire Prevention Project

CalFire Reference Material ( please add )

Are on a separate page

Proposal Factoid Gathering

according to [Maps] we are not in a Very High Fire risk area. We are in a High Risk zone.

This means we may be suitable for exemption from California Environmental Quality Act ( CEQA ) due to a 2015 Proclamation of a State of Emergency. There are a few ( 4 ) requirements, and we would have to meet the practices documented in http://www.fire.ca.gov/treetaskforce/downloads/Draft_Tree_Removal_Guidelines_3-1-16.pdf

- related BUDGET ITEMS: Fees for Department of Fish and Wildlife filing fees. Advised to put requests for funds into the proposal budget. LOOK UP WHAT $$$ IS INVOLVED
Disadvanged ( correccct that term ) Community? look up

Preparedness/CalFire2018Grants

Contents