• Articles,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws News December

    Celebrating 2022 by Jody DicksonWe always like to take a little bit of time at the end of the year to celebrate another year of Saws & Slaws! We had another excellent year with five regular events doing good fire mitigation work throughout the Coal Creek Canyon community. Officially, we had over 275 volunteered hours of service which represents a value of almost $7,000 of work. Our volunteers don’t get paid, but as you can see there is significant value in what they do! It is important that we recognize that. We had 50 unique volunteers at these events. Not everyone needs to volunteer at every event. We can share…

  • Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws and Slaws News October

    What IS a Saws & Slaws Event? by Jody Dickson & Linda MartinMaybe you’ve heard of Saws & Slaws before but don’t know exactly what we do. Saws & Slaws is a community organization that brings neighbors together to do wildfire mitigation and attend to the health of our forest. We do that primarily by organizing monthly events every month Mother Nature allows! Our ‘legacy’ events are typically three to four neighboring properties where we work at whatever needs done for four hours. This can be felling trees, hauling and chipping slash, raking around a home, week-wacking weeds or more. Volunteers make it possible to get a large amount of…

  • Slash Dogs
    Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation,  Uncategorized

    Saws & Slaws September News

    What to do with that slash!?! by Linda Martin & Jody DicksonSaws & Slaws has been chugging along this summer and we still have plenty to accomplish. We have been really excited to be debating the ever present question “what is the best thing to do with the slash?” Believe it or not, there seem to be multiple answers and lots of variables to consider. Slash is a pain in the ash. It’s the bain of fire mitigation and takes a lot of energy, time and money to deal with. Here are all the choices (see where you would lie on the spectrum): – cut tree and process firewood, leave…

  • Norval and his trusty side-kick, ol’ Bessie!
    Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws August News

    Application of Fire Ecology by Jody Dickson & Linda MartinWhen we are deciding what work we need to do in order to be effective, it helps to have a basic understanding of fire ecology and behavior. Fire ecology looks at fire’s role within an ecosystem, including when and why a wildfire happens as well as the impacts of that fire on the ecosystem. We know that our particular forest ecology is fire-dependent which means there are native plant species that NEED fire in order to be healthy. Since animals, including humans, depend on plants, the plants being healthy is necessary for us and wildlife to be healthy as well. However,…

  • Volunteers
    Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws July News

    We are excited for summertime and our 2022 summer season being in full swing. Our June 11th event went well, despite the heat and steep slopes. We worked in the area around Lionel Lane and Coal Creek Heights Dr. We processed a lot of tall trees, so it created a lot of logs (and firewood. See below.) We got slash out of the forest and hauled a few loads to the Nederland sort yard. An especially big thank you to our drivers who made the trips over to the sort yard. This batch was mostly dry and dead, and we acknowledge that is the hardest stuff to load and unload!…

  • Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws June News

    Fantastic Start to the Season May was an amazing start to our 2022 season. At the very beginning, we hosted our Spring 2022 Chainsaw Skills and Safety class. We hold this class every year as it is a requirement for being a sawyer at one of our events but also to give everyone a chance to learn more about operating a chainsaw safely and effectively. This year we had a couple of people from not associated with any group, a small group from Axe & Snax, our peers in Gilpin County, and another person from the Crescent Park Community Fire Protection Agency. It is great that we can share the wealth…

  • Articles,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws May News

    Back in the Saddle (and ready to go!) Saws & Slaws (short for Chainsaws & Coleslaws) is heading into its 12th season! We are so excited to get back to some seasonal fire mitigation and we hope you are ready to help us! For those of you who are unfamiliar with our different styles of events, I will lay it out once again. Each summer we try to schedule 5 “Legacy” events. These are generally large events where more than one property has trees to take down and slash to remove or chip in place. We bring between 20-30 volunteers in for 4 hours, Sawyers, Swampers, Loaders, and Truck/trailer drivers.…

  • Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws April News

    Keeping it Local by Jody DicksonWe are SO blessed as a community to have multiple dedicated efforts around wildfire mitigation. Saws and Slaws is just one of the many groups operating in Coal Creek Canyon on the shared task of making our community safer and more resilient through a wildfire event. Going from east to west, at the mouth of the canyon, the Blue Mountain Forest Stewardship Initiative has done amazing work and has completed the tasks for the Blue Mountain section of our Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The Crescent Park Community Fire Protection Agency has just formed and started doing work last year to address the specific needs of…

  • Articles,  Fire Mitigation Events,  Mitigation

    Saws & Slaws March News

    Getting ready for a full season!! by Jody DicksonI cannot believe it is already March which means our season of events is only a couple months away! We are busy getting our events scheduled and finalized, so we can deliver on a season full of improving forest health, improving our resilience through a wildfire event, and building our amazing community. We can all make this place a better and safer place to be and enjoy ourselves while we do it! I also enjoy the sense of accomplishment at the end of every Saws & Slaws events. It is absolutely something to celebrate every time, even when things don’t always go…