As fall approaches, we have much to be thankful for regarding fire safety. Concerning direct threats, firefighters from the Forest Service and Riverside County stopped a dangerous threat to our mountain in the Cottonwood Fire. This was no small feat, as anyone who saw the smoke plume blotting out the western sun that first day can attest. And regarding fire prevention, the Fire Safe Council finally received funds on a large grant to help offset the cost of fuel abatement for homeowners.

I have been eager to write this column for the last six months, but since the funds were held up the story has changed. Our large grant, awarded in September of 2008, was held up because of problems with the environmental review. The US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) held the grant because of fears that our abatement work in Anza would be detrimental to the Quino checkerspot butterfly. For those of you who don't know, and I assure you most of us on the MCFSC board did not, the USFWS is responsible for implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). They are required by law to prevent any action that threatens a species that is listed by the federal government as threatened or endangered. It just so happens that the Quino checkerspot butterfly, a listed species, is very fond of parts of the Anza Valley in spring, and USFWS thought our proposed abatement work would do it harm.

The list of restrictions first provided to us would have made it very difficult to do the work we proposed. We would have been prevented from working there for all the key months of abatement season, and our costs would have been much higher because of extensive biological studies.

Fortunately for all concerned, we were able to work out arrangements with a great deal of communication and some key meetings over the summer. With help from Chief Kevin Turner of Calfire and the Forest Service, USFWS wrote a set of restrictions in August that all parties thought was fair, and the grant was approved. There are still outstanding issues regarding the ESA and fire abatement that need to be resolved at higher levels, but for the moment we have what we need to go ahead with our work.

I don't wish to have eyes glaze over with the numbers, but I do wish to explain how these grants are structured. This grant will give us $800,000, but we now refer to it as "the million dollar" grant, because we must provide "matching funds" of $266,667. Tom McCullough, former math professor and our treasurer, is trying to get us to always think of the total grant obligation, thus the million dollar reference. (Of course the total is $1,066,667). We can provide this match in both "hard" dollars, such as homeowner cost share, dues and donations; and "soft" dollars, which are volunteer hours.

So if you need abatement work on your property, call us and we can achieve the grant's purpose-fuel reduction-and you can help us meet our match with your share of the job. You can also join the Fire Safe Council, donate, or volunteer. Whatever you can do helps.