How does one become "firewise"? Well, if you're the Amador County Board of Supervisors, you ask Karina Silvas to explain it to you.

After watching Silvas make two presentations on the Firewise Communities/USA program, which grants national recognition to neighborhoods that pare down the risks of wildfires, District 3 Supervisor Ted Novelli invited the Sierra Forest Legacy coordinator to make her pitch to the board Tuesday.

A former firefighter with the Mendocino National Forest's upper ranger district, Silvas cut a brisk path through a PowerPoint overview that interspersed images of raging wildfires and devastated communities with those of shingle roofs, juniper screens, bug-infested wood piles and other common dangers communities can avoid. Silvas has been working with the Amador Fire Safe Council since July to promote prevention efforts.

Where the Sierra Forest Legacy - an organization originally formed in 1996 and refocused in 2002 to concentrate on national forest issues in the Sierra Nevadas - is more about education, fire safe council executive director Cathy Koos-Brezeal called her group "more project-driven." The council was just awarded a federal grant for a fuel break project in the Buckhorn area. So far this year, the council has also cleared defensible space around 150 disabled and elderly county residents' homes, overseen assessment plans in Pine Grove and the Pioneer-Volcano area, and conducted other projects meant to prevent the next big one. One of the shanty fuel breaks the group erected was where fire crews made their last stand against the Electra blaze this past June, Koos-Brezeal said.

Silvas called the firewise designation "just another tool for (the council) to use," fusing project work with education. Grants also become easier to come by, Silvas offered, with the firewise stamp of approval. "Our objective is to take a community approach to solving the wildland/urban interface issues," she told the Ledger Dispatch Wednesday.

That term refers to developments that encroach on forested areas, where the risk of being devoured by wildland blazes is greater. Silvas said there are three factors that drive any fire - topography, weather and fuel. "Topography and weather are two things that we can't do anything about," she explained. "The only thing that we can manipulate is the fuels."

Clearing surface fuels like grass, litter and debris removes the fuse that can carry fires from one structure to another, what Silvas referred to as "home-to-home ignition." Also in that category are the firebrand storms, which are flickering bits of floating ember that can spark additional blazes more than a mile away from where they originate.

Ladder fuels carry flames upwards into tree canopies where they become exponentially dangerous and difficult to contain. "(They're) not only vegetation, they can be trash cans, wood piles, fences," Silvas emphasized, pausing on images of pine needle landscapes, discarded gas cans and a tarped boat underneath a wooded awning. "It's not just vegetation management, it's fuels management." Roof maintenance, approved sidings, proper landscaping all play critical roles as well, she added.

Weather certainly hasn't been helping. Throughout the past decade, California has seen many of its large and devastating fires around this time. In October 1991, the Oakland Hills fire quickly burned more than 1,500 acres, destroyed 2,900 structures and took the lives of 25 people. In October 1995, the Vision fire in Marin County burned over 12,000 acres and destroyed 48 structures. In October 2003, more than a dozen fires across Southern California charred over 750,000 acres, destroyed 3,710 homes and took 24 lives. Just last year, another siege began in late October, blackening more than half a million acres, destroying over 3,000 homes and taking the lives of 10 people.

Asked for an estimate of when the fire season might end this year, CAL FIRE spokesman Toby Edmonds told the Ledger Dispatch unseasonably dry conditions could extend it through December.

This year featured a number of big blazes earlier this summer, taxing firefighting resources to the limit. Silvas said the growing pinch on statewide resources makes the shift from fire suppression efforts to prevention a crucial one. "We really want to empower homeowners to do their job and do their part," she stressed.

Eleven communities across the state, seven of them in northern California, have earned the firewise designation, including Forest Meadows in Murphys and Grizzly Flats, which used a grant for a roadside clearing project. "These communities have taken the initiative to be part of the solution," Silvas said.

Supervisors were enthusiastic about the presentation. "The people need to hear this, I think, repeatedly," said District 5 Supervisor Brian Oneto. "And they won't read it, but if it's a show they will watch it."

Supervisors Rich Escamilla and Louis Boitano said continued outreach would be important in converting some of more reluctant homeowners. Silvas said her group has helped homeowners secure grants for such projects if they don't have the means themselves.

Supervisor-elect John Plasse asked whether the firewise program coordinated at all with home insurance agencies to offer reduced rates to homeowners that embrace fire prevention measures.

"We're not working with them yet," Silvas replied, "but we're in the process of getting them on board."

Oneto said Silvas' presentation made the case for more aggressive logging practices. "Forests need to be thinned and that doesn't just mean taking out toothpicks," Oneto said.

"It's an interesting issue," Silvas said Wednesday. "There's a fine line between spacing trees and taking too much for fuel reduction."

Silvas, who normally makes her presentation to homeowners' associations and neighborhood groups, said the board of supervisors could best show its support by continuing to fund its fire safe council.

For more information on the Firewise Communities/USA program, visit www.sierraforestlegacy.org.