CWPP Update – October Team Rubicon Event

By Jody Dickson, CCCFPD CWPP Implementation Committee

We were thrilled to host another wildfire mitigation event with Team Rubicon in October.  We had over 70 volunteers from Team Rubicon, our community, Lockheed Martin and the Air Force Academy.  We worked on nine different properties and generated over 20,000 cubic feet of slash. That is more slash than we’ve generated in a whole season of Saws & Slaws. I continue to think of the way Team Rubicon works as the same as Saws and Slaws… just on steroids. If you don’t already know, Team Rubicon is largely made up of military veterans. Consequently, they operate their mitigation and disaster response events like a military operation.  The easiest way for me to describe it is that everyone has a clear role and responsibility with assigned equipment and tasks.  Their motto is to GSD: “Get s—t done” and they do!!

Caption: Learning the story of a tree after felling a large snag near Highway 72.

We had many lessons learned after last year’s event, so we were able to make some key improvements for this year. The first being that we managed our workload a lot better than last year. Home assessments were done to provide the team with clear objectives about what work to do, including using insight from the recommendations from our updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). 

We were very fortunate to have some of TR’s top sawyers here in Coal Creek at this event, especially due to the volume of work they are managing right now in response to the hurricanes on the east coast. On the first day with the extra volunteers from Lockheed Martin and the Air Force Academy, we had the right number of swampers to keep up with what the sawyers were getting down on the ground!!  One of the Team Rubicon sawyers said because of the number of swampers that they were able to get two days’ worth of work done in one day!

Caption: A section of a Home Ignition Zone before Team Rubicon got to work

Caption: … and after Team Rubicon visit! 

Also like last year, it took a LOT of people and organizations to pull together an event like this.  For the first time this year we had the CWPP Community Ambassadors to help us prepare for the event including identifying potential worksites, scheduling site assessments and working out in the field!!  Saws & Slaws helped us recruit our community volunteers.  Chipping equipment and operators were provided by Jefferson County Open Space as well as our very own Chris Reichard.  We also had major support from Crescent Park Fire Protection Association, Boulder County Wildfire Partners, and the Boulder Watershed Collective.  Essential food and snacks to sustain all of these hard-working volunteers were provided by Canyon Coffee, Lockheed Martin, and Crescent Park Fire Protection Association.  We were headquartered in the CCCIA Community Center thanks to the Coal Creek Canyon Improvement Association.  We couldn’t have had such a successful event without all of these organizers and service providers.

I also want to highlight the homeowners who agreed to have the work done on their properties.  Many of them saw their properties significantly transform with new views, more sunlight, and in the years to come new flora and fauna.  Sometimes the motivation to do this work is to protect personal property and ensure our own safety. Both of those motivators are very important and valuable.  Yet, I also want to emphasize that every homeowner who does this work ALSO helps protect our community and our firefighters.  For that we are very grateful!!

With all of that said, most of our gratitude goes to Team Rubicon.  For a minute, I thought Team Rubicon would have to cancel due to the hurricanes, but fortunately they have local volunteers who are currently not traveling to support their disaster response work.  We are so extremely grateful for their proactive support in making our neighbors and our community safer and more resilient in the event of a wildfire. 

Team Rubicon operates almost entirely on corporate and private donations, so all of this work was done free of charge to the property owners.  If you’d like to support their work, please make a donation at https://teamrubiconusa.org/

We look forward to hosting Team Rubicon and other mitigation groups in the future.  The CWPP Community Ambassadors are here to help neighborhoods organize similar events.  Links to the full CWPP and many related resources are available on our website at www.CoalCreekCWPP.org. If you have any questions please contact your Community Ambassador or us at CWPPforCCC@gmail.com. Thank you, again, for your fantastic support and activity to get this work done.