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Dear Friends and Neighbors, If you travel down Townsend –Winona Road, you’ll see that a tremendous amount of work has been done to reduce the vegetation along the roadway. While we’re not through with this work, we are well on our way to getting it completed. I’ d like to acknowledge the efforts of the Coconino National Forest and the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership and the vision that was needed to reduce the fuel loading not just in our area but all around Flagstaff. The work on the ground has been done by the various "Hand Crews" from different agencies. The Mormon Lake and Flagstaff Hot Shots, City of Flagstaff Fuels Crew, and the crews from the Pinewood, Highlands and Summit Fire Departments are the young people that have done the hands on work. We are grateful to have these crews working in our area because of the threat from wildland fire due to the significant mortality rate of both pine and juniper along this corridor. There are many piles that have been stacked by the crews that you see along the roadway. These will be burned at a later date when the conditions are right. There is wood in some of these piles that is available for your use. We ask that if you do remove wood from any of the piles that you throw the remainder of the material back onto the pile so we don’t have to duplicate our work and the piles will remain ready for burning. This cooperative effort has put a big dent in our concerns at the Summit FD of a wildfire gaining momentum and getting out of control along the T/W Corridor. The next area that we will be working is the area on the west side of Highway 89 from the Sandy Seep area north towards Lenox Road. This work is invaluable to protecting our community. There are many of us at Summit FD who have had the opportunity to go to fires elsewhere in the country that threatened communities. In some cases entire communities have been destroyed and in other cases, we were able to keep fires from creating significant loss. Invariably, it was those areas that had been thinned and prepared for wildfire that we were able to make a difference. While this year is the slowest in 30 years for wildfires in our nation, we want you to know that we are continuing to work every day, and with the help of our partners we are making our community a safer place to live. At our August 19th Board meeting, the fire board will be voting on whether to merge with the Fort Valley Fire District. We feel that this is a major step in the right direction and will help both communities on several levels. If you have any interest in making comments to the fire board, you may submit them in writing and we will provide them to the fire board during the meeting. You are also welcome to come to the board meeting and address the fire board. We want to inform you that we are going to provide only 2 newsletters this year. As always, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to give us a call at (928) 526-9537 or stop by a station. Thanks for your support in the past and we hope you have a great rest of the Summer. We would like to hear from you concerning what level of service you think we should provide. You can call us, send us a letter or send an e-mail to admin@summitfiredepartment.org and we will respond to you. Don Howard, Chief |