Hi all,

Thanks very much for taking the time to attend our Firewise meeting last night, and for your helpful questions and ideas. I wanted to follow up with additional information about a few of the things we discussed:

Wildfire Cameras: visit this page to make a donation towards the Special Tesuque Matching campaign for the camera’s operations and maintenance. If you’d like to learn more about the camera project visit here (but don’t make your donation through the portal on this page or it won’t count for the Tesuque match..use the first link). You can see the live footage from teh Tesuque camera here. And if you’d like to explore the app that Jonathan showed that provides information on fire activity here and throughout the country, visit the WatchDuty site. A special thanks to Jonathan Frenzen for all of his work on this project and for taking the time to come speak to us last night. (Apologies for those who received an email about this from the TVCA with this information, but I wanted to make sure anyone not on that mailing list had the info).

Santa Fe Alert: at this page, you can find more information and a link to sign up for the Alert Santa Fe system, which provides alerts (via email, text, voice, or social media ) in the case of emergencies, wildfires, and severe weather. (Note that the link is to a City of Santa Fe page, but the service is shared with the County).

Free Green Waste Days: it looks like this year they have pushed back the start of the program until April, so it is now free to bring un-bagged green waste to the Buckman Road Transfer Station on the first weekend of the month from April - September. Note that there are a few holidays in there that impact this schedule - here’s a link with the full schedule for free green waste dates as well as free drop-off dates for tires, electronic waste, and hazardous waste.

Free Home Wildfire Risk Assessment: as mentioned, the an expert from Forest Stewards Guild will visit your home and provide suggestions for practical steps you can take to reduce your fire risk - you can sign up here for a appointment, or review a handy guide here.

Firewise: you can learn more about the overall Firewise program here. Planned local events that were mentioned include a free community chipper day (date tbd in early May) and annual reporting of fire mitigation activities completed on your properties (look for an email from me with details in mid-October).

Next Steps for our Committee: we’re in the early stages of determining the focus of our Tesuque Valley Firewise Committee - please send me any ideas that you may have for projects, topics, or concerns that we might address. Ideally, we will be able to develop a list of impactful and actionable things that we can potentially work on. Similarly, if there are properties that you are aware of that might benefit from having work done through our fire mitigation grant, please let me know. Ideally, the property will belong to someone interested in having the work completed but unable to do it themselves for financial or other reasons. I’m hoping to hold another meeting, either in person or remotely, in early summer to discuss the feedback received from you all. I will send out an email in advance with any meeting information or if anything pertinent comes up before then. Thanks to Scott Hicks and the Tesuque Fire Department for hosting us!

Questions? Please email me (rachel3white@gmail.com) with any questions.

Again, I appreciate any input you may have and look forward to working together!

Very best,

Rachel