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5.5 Past and Current Public Land Accomplishments <br />5.5. 7 Past Private Land Accomplishments and Challenges <br />Since 2009, collaborators and partners have recognized the growing frequency of wildfires in the <br />state and county and have taken action to mitigate wildfire risk through educational resources, <br />financial incentives, and fuels reduction programs for private landowners. Private lands fuels <br />reduction has been steadily increased due to frequency of wildfire and residential development. The <br />result of past treatments has been fairly minimal when compared to the scale and pace of treatments <br />that need to occur on the landscape to effectively minimize risk to private property. Looking to the <br />future, advancing private land treatments that offer more effective benefits to communities by <br />reducing risk to residential, economic, and recreational areas will be prioritized in the landscape. <br />5.5.2 Kittitas County Conservation District <br />KCCD has engaged private landowners in Lower and Upper Kittitas County since the early 2000s . In <br />2009, the KCCD was asked by the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners to facilitate the initial <br />CWPP . After the adoption of the CWPP in April 2009, KCCD continued to work with private <br />landowners participating in fuels reduction programs with funding from DNR, FEMA and other public <br />sources. During that time, the KCCD has served as the first point of contact for almost all Firewise <br />Communities, and worked with many landowners on a voluntary basis. Since 2015, KCCD has worked <br />with over 26 Firewise Communities (see Section 6.2) and helped facilitate recognition status of <br />approximately ten new communities and with 350 landowners who participated in the Roving <br />Chipper program resulting in treatment of 81 acres in 2016 to 2017 alone . From 2016 to 2017, using <br />$199,750 of state capital funds thru lnteragency Agreements with DNR, KCCD worked with private <br />landowners to treat 156 acres and use a local Fire District Chipping Crew to work with 247 voluntary <br />private landowners. The local Fire District Chipping Crew worked in many communities, providing <br />Ready, Set, Go! (see Section 6.5) and Firewise literature and sharing information regard i ng local <br />resources for fuels reduction cost-share, site visits from the KCCD, local fire districts, DNR, and other <br />partners depending on each landowner's interests and concerns. <br />5.5.3 Washington Department of Natural Resources <br />DNR Landowner Assistance Program (DNR LOA) has provided technical and financial assistance to <br />many private landowners throughout Kittitas County since the early 2000s. KCCD and DNR LOA have <br />also developed a partnership and adapted the private lands Fuels Reduction programs and <br />delegated different tasks to one another, finding better ways to leverage money and increase the <br />program efficiency, pace, and scale of private land fuels reduction . <br />Community Wildfire Protection Plan 42 September 2018