1. Soothing the Volatile Relationship Between Fire Marshals and School Districts Texas Emergency Management Conference 2011

2. What is a good relationship? Professionalism Respectful Cooperative

3. Where Do You Maintain This Relationship? Campus District Community

4. Why Do You Maintain This Relationship? It’s the law Partnership/Interoperability Safety of the students

5. When and How Do You Maintain This Relationship? All levels of emergency planning: Mitigation Preparedness Response Recovery

6. MITAGATION Inspections of facilities Consultations on new construction Consultations on renovations

7. PREPAREDNESS Emergency planning Special event planning Training Communications

8. RESPONSE Resources Collaboration Coordination

9. RECOVERY Resources Feedback

10. Wildfire in West Lake Hills Mike Elliott, Assistant Chief, Westlake Fire Department

11. Why do Residents Choose to Live in our Community?

12. Wildfires CAN and DO happen in TEXAS!

13. Fires in Southwest Austin 2000 CE-Bar FD Five Acre Fire Started by a person using fireworks near Olympus Dr (in the fire district to our west). Required response of 6 fire departments and the Texas Forest Service’s ground and air support. Almost 40 homes were threatened. Fire took over seven hours to extinguish. 2006 Driftwood Fire A person burning trash on FM 1826 started a 1,200 acre fire The fire burned overnight. Required response from all fire departments in Hays County and many of the departments in southern Travis County. The terrain and vegetation are very similar to our own.

14. Wildfire History in the West bank Largest fire in the West bank area started on St. Stephen’s School Rd on Friday, April 14, 1961 Ignition point: cigarette tossed out of a car window. Grass fire ignited many large brush piles located on the Davenport Ranch. Strong winds from the north/northwest spread the fire from brush pile to brush pile. Over 200 students from St. Edwards and UT volunteered to fight the fire. Contractors with bulldozers cut fire lines near Bee Creek. The fire burned over 4,000 acres from 9:00 am Friday through the weekend with, hot spots still burning the next Monday morning.

15. West bank Wildfire Statistics Since 2000, the Westlake Fire Department has responded to 74 grass or brush fires in our district. Most were less than a half acre. In 2006, one death was attributed to a brush fire.

16. Wildfire in West Lake Hills Factors that contribute to large fire development and response concerns: Drought conditions preceding fire ignition. Slope or wind-driven fire of more than half an acre, triggering evacuations. Evacuation problems road blockage keeping people out of the area assisting people to evacuate Poor fire breaks, encouraging easy fire spread.