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From : Lila Hayes
Sent : August 24, 2005
Subject : OFRG weekly update
Meeting
Reminder
Our August get together will be on August 28
at 2PM.
This month we are meeting the Burgett
family. The Burgett's have not been to any of our previous meetings, but I
met him through the contractor that my mother is currently using (Mallory
Construction). They are excited to meet other fire survivors and want to
help in any way they can. Kim builds museum exhibits and has previously
talked about creating an exhibit about fire survivors at the San Bernardino
County Museum. It will be fun to hear if this project has moved
forward. We look forward to meeting this family and sharing in the
recovery process with them!
Their house is located at 5422 Elmwood.
Elmwood is the first street east of Del Rosa, between Eureka and Foothill.
For a map, click HERE
This will be a potluck, so bring a small dish to
share!
If your house is available for the September 25 get
together, please let me know!
Lila Hayes
Old Fire Recovery Group
www.oldfirerecoverygroup.org
909-266-1459
vm/fax
---
Index
1. Book Review: How to Win the Insurance
Claim Game
2. Cheap Tree Update
---
In The News
1. State Highway 18 reopens Friday Aug 26th -
Crestline Area, August 19, 2005, CalTrans Press Release
2. Fire closes part of road, burns 49 acres
Monday , August 22, 2005, The Riverside Press-Enterprise
3. Inland
fire-safety efforts recognized with grants, August 16, 2005 , The Riverside
Press-Enterprise
4. Mountain dwellers fear losing fire escape, August
1, 2005, ASSOCIATED PRESS, as published in San Diego Union Tribune
5.
Tree Firm Alleges It Had Been Cut Off, August 11, 2005, LA Times Staff
Writers
6. Psst -- know of any good contractors?, August 21, 2005, LA
Times
---
On The Web
1. Estimated expenditures resulting from the
Old, Grand Prix, and Padua Fires
2. Links to live webcams in Southern
California
3. 2005 National
Silviculture Workshop Presentations
4. Brand Dilution - a paper on how to better protect
houses during a firestorm
---
1.
Book Review: How to Win the Insurance Claim
Game
---
by Ron Alford
The Plan Publishing Company; 1992
This book is relatively short (less than 100 pages)
and has forms and charts in the back which could be useful to a claimant.
He writes in an easy to read style which is especially useful after a
disaster. The tips are basic and useful. He uses real examples to
drive home his points which would be helpful to a new claimant.
My first impression upon reading this book is that
George Kehrer had definitely read this book! Some of the diagrams and
stories are things that George himself demonstrated to us at his
seminars!
On the other hand, Mr. Alford strongly pushes the
use of public adjusters. He does give very strong cautions against using a
"bad" public adjuster and there are many quotes and scenarios which might be
useful to anyone who has been introduced to a public adjuster, but just the fact
that he pushes them so heavily really bothers me. Unfortunately, it seems
that the majority of public adjusters are the "shark" type he cautions so
strongly against.
Another drawback is that this book is mainly for
people with a partial loss. I know that the majority of people do have
partial losses, so this book is definitely written for them and gives many
helpful hints for people with partial losses.
For example, he has a timeline which he strongly
suggests following. The problem is, for a total loss, this timeline is
completely unreasonable, even suggesting that you should sign a contract with a
contractor within 72-96 hours. Heck, it took us about 4 weeks to get our
bids back, let alone review them and negotiate with them before we finally
signed a contract (which for us was at least 2 months). I have a feeling
that this timeline might be unreasonable period, but since I have not had to
deal with a partial loss (especially in a non-disaster situation), it is
difficult for me to comment on this.
All in all, this is a useful book which I will draw
on in the future, but not a "must-read" as other books have been.
---
2.
Cheap Tree Update
---
In our last newsletter I mentioned that Pertisits
Farm in Calimesa has sold their farm and is clearing out inventory. They
would like to help fire survivors by selling them to us at a
discount.
Linda called to mention that she has gotten a
strong response from fire survivors, but does NOT have any fruit
trees.
You must call in advance to make an appointment as
this sale is not open to the general public. Call the number below and ask
for Linda.
Pertisits Farm
1110 S Fremont street
Calimesa Ca
909-795-2438
They are running their office out of their house
during the transition, so please don't call after
6PM
In The News
---
1. State Highway 18 reopens Friday Aug 26th
- Crestline Area
August 19, 2005
CalTrans Press Release
--
2. Fire
closes part of road, burns 49 acres Monday
11:28 PM PDT on
Monday, August 22, 2005
By KENNY KLEIN / The
Riverside Press-Enterprise
HOMELAND -
A fast-moving brush fire charred 49 acres, threatened homes and closed a
portion of Juniper Flats Road Monday afternoon.
No injuries were reported and no homes were
destroyed as of 8 p.m. Monday, Riverside County Fire Department Capt. Tony
Mecham said by phone. Mecham said the blaze would likely by controlled by 6 a.m.
today.
Julie Hutchinson, a fire department
spokeswoman, said the homeowners' past work in clearing brush and weeds from
around their homes made firefighters' jobs easier on Monday.
--
3. Inland fire-safety efforts recognized with grants
10:11 AM PDT
on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Riverside
Press-Enterprise
The California Fire Safe Council and
U.S. Forest Service have combined to dole out more than $1.5 million in grants
for wildfire-safety programs around Southern California.
--
4. Mountain dwellers fear
losing fire escape
Roads hit by winter storms
unrepaired
By Greg Risling
ASSOCIATED PRESS, as
published in San Diego Union Tribune
August 1, 2005
CRESTLINE – As wildfires tore through
Southern California two years ago, firefighters let Ron Albright and his wife
return to their home in the San Bernardino Mountains to grab their belongings.
They had little choice about their
route back out of the forest. With paved roads blocked by other fleeing
homeowners, they took a bumpy, dirt road built to accommodate fire crews.
This summer, mountain dwellers might
not have that option.
--
5. Tree Firm Alleges It Had Been Cut
Off
Firm accused of neglect by S.B. County filed a complaint
with a U.S. agency in March.
August 11, 2005
By Stephanie Ramos and Ashley Powers, LA Times
Staff Writers
A tree-removal contractor stripped of about
$250,000 in work by San Bernardino County this week had filed a complaint with a
federal agency in March alleging that he had been passed over for other
contracts despite being the lowest bidder.
Andy Acosta told the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service that
the county had denied him six jobs worth about $3.4 million, writing in his
complaint that the county felt it was "too much work for one company."
--
6. Psst -- know of any good contractors?
Because of
the current remodeling frenzy, it isn't always easy to find skilled labor for
the small jobs -- unless you know where to look.
August 21, 2005
By
Dinah Eng, Special to The Times
Finding a good contractor to do a small job in a timely fashion these days
is like meeting your soul mate on a blind date. Not impossible, but highly
unlikely.
With all the remodeling being done across the Southland, it's often hard to
get a contractor to even return a phone call. Factor in winter's heavy rains,
which delayed building projects everywhere, and there is no shortage of
frustrated, unhappy homeowners.
---
On The Web
---
1. Estimated expenditures resulting from
the Old, Grand Prix, and Padua Fires
A preliminary report by the USDA Forest Service
identifies more than $1 billion in costs resulting from 2003
wildfires.
“Most cost estimates for wildfires start and stop
with the cost of fighting the fire. This report shows that the suppression costs
for the 2003 fires are an extremely small piece of the puzzle,” said Alex Dunn,
Planning Specialist for the San Bernardino National Forest, who authored the
report while on assignment to the Riverside Forest Fire Lab."
For the full press release about the report, please
follow this
link
The actual report can be found here
--
2. Links to live webcams in Southern
California
--
3. 2005 National Silviculture Workshop
Presentations
Restoring Fire Adapted Forested
Ecosystems
The 2005 National Silviculture Workshop took place
June 6-10, 2005, near Tahoe City California. The workshop is a long-standing,
bi-annual workshop within the Forest Service co-sponsored by the National Forest
System Branch and the Research and Development Branch. The workshop, hosted in
rotation among Forest Service regions, was hosted in 2005 by the Pacific
Southwest Region and the Pacific Southwest Research Station on the Lake Tahoe
Basin Management Unit and the Tahoe National Forest.
The following is a summary of the presentations of
the workshop. Links are included to the presentations given by the workshop
speakers. The presentation documents are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Some of
the files are large. For best results, do not open the PDF in your web browser.
Right-click the PDF link and select "Save target as..." (as in Internet
Explorer) or similar "save" link option with other browsers, to download the PDF
to your computer.
Associated manuscripts are scheduled for
publication as a General Technical Report at a later date.
--
4. Brand Dilution - a paper on how to
better protect houses during a firestorm
California's Fire Siege destroyed more than 4,000
homes and took 24 lives in October 2003. That's not as unusual as the numbers
would suggest. When it comes to wildfires, the catastrophic is
typical.
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