Mitigation with yet another purpose: Training future firefighters in Colorado
The sounds of chainsaws spread across part of Genesee this week, as Mile High Youth Corps workers teamed up with Genesee Foundation workers to thin forest areas in need of mitigation.
"It is hard work. It's fulfilling at the end of the day," said worker, 23-year-old London Harcourt.
Harcourt is one of the workers who is working not only on mitigating land to prevent fires, but learning skills that will help him attain his dream to be a wildland firefighter.
My fiancee is a wildland firefighter, and she went through the same process as me. She went through the Youth Corps.
Overall, 65 Corps members have joined up Mile High Youth Corps' fire crew.
Right now, the work is mitigation.
"These trees are all very fire adapted," said Harcourt about the ecosystem in the foothills. "So that's why we do this work is to eliminate ladder fuels that can take the fire up into the canopy. If the fire stays on the ground, that's what this ecosystem wants to see."
He was also able to connect through his boss with the Genesee Foundation to get into a wildland firefighter class early this year.
"Some day, we can just focus on building up defenses around wilderness urban interfaces like this one, and then letting the fires roam in the more wild areas. That's a big dream of mine is to see that taking place," Harcourt said.
Sophia Cordara joined the Mile High Youth Corps from Jacksonville, Florida where she grew up.
"It's been really cool to be out here in the mountains in these forests and see how much the dryness effects it and all of those types of things that I would have never imagined back home," Cordera said. At 21, she has taken a turn from her college major, political science.
"The idea of doing anything where I'm not sitting still where I'm not being exhausted at the end of the day where I'm not covered in smoke, kind of sounds boring to me," Cordera said. "I think being out here I'm seeing how unhealthy the forests are in Colorado and I'm happy to be trying to make a small dent in that."
The sales tax ballot question Prosperity Denver provides reimbursement for corps members from Denver. Mile High Youth Corps both pays and supports the workers in other ways. Helping them get certifications such as chainsaw certification is part of the mitigation work.
"They need more and more firefighters because there are more and more fires, and they're hotter, and they're faster, and they're stronger," Cordera said.
Moving into fire training is a next step, then getting the approvals they need to fight fires.
"Once I get a job with a station or a district, then, I can get my red card then I'll be ready to go as a firefighter," Harcourt said.
