To the Editor:

On Saturday, March 4, the members of the Top Road Firewise Community had their first community workday. For our project this year, we chose to help one of our neighbors, an elderly widow in our community. There were approximately 25 people participating, including the family of our neighbor. One of our county commissioners, John Rowell, and his wife were on scene helping. It was refreshing to see our local county representative jump in and sweat along with the rest of us.

There were a lot of things on her property that needed to be done. Her driveway is about a quarter-mile long and had grown in with sage and juniper trees to the point that, during a fire, it would have been nearly impossible to get from the county road to her house. People with chainsaws cleared a 40-foot right of way on each side of this driveway. The brush was piled and burned.

There were also several large cottonwood trees in the house area. This had added to the fire danger around her home. We were able to take all of those out. There were several people with rakes cleaning up around the house as these trees were cut down, and the shrubbery around the yard was pruned. The conditions were right for us to pile and burn all the debris at the time.

We are very new in the Firewise organization, but in my opinion, it is a great thing, and more people should take advantage of the ability to come together and help their neighbors. This beautiful area that we live in is incredibly remote and has an extremely high fire danger. If we, as private citizens, do not concern ourselves with our own fire safety situation and that of our friends and neighbors, it is shame on us. As good a job as our ODF guys do, they can’t be everywhere at once. If we haven’t done our part to mitigate the risks, there is no way that we can expect them to protect us.

Bill Newman

Top Ranch, Monument