Happy 2023! This past year has been one for the books. WFCA launched numerous initiatives, saw success in the development of its wildfire map, and welcomed new board members and industry partnerships. All the hard work last year by WFCA’s staff, consultants and board members have set the Association up for another successful year. Read on to learn how we closed out this notable year stronger than ever.
Interim Deputy Director
WFCA welcomed Chief Bob Horton as its Interim Deputy Director in early December. Click here to read his Leadership Message published in the Daily Dispatch.
Board Vice President
President Mark Niemeyer announced that the WFCA Board of Directors appointed Chief Jeremy Craft, WFCA’s Utah Director, to the role of Vice President. Chief Niemeyer stated, “Jeremy has strong visioning skills, a common-sense approach to problem-solving, and is never afraid to roll up his sleeves and get to work on behalf of the Association.”
Milliman Alliance
WFCA has established a strategic alliance with Milliman, a global leader in risk management, to intelligently drive down risk in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). Milliman has an established expertise in WUI risk analysis through extensive work for its property insurance clients. Click here to learn more.
Economic Update by Dr. Anirban Basu
Dr. Basu returned to provide WFCA members an in-depth analysis of the major factors shaping economic outcomes, including central bank policymaking, worker attitudes, business confidence, and geopolitics. Click here to watch the full recording or sections that are most relevant to you.
WFCA, Plume Labs, and AccuWeather Review 2022 Wildfire Season, Discuss 2023 Predictions in Webinar
Wednesday, January 25 at 9:00 AM PST
Experts from WFCA, Plume Labs, and AccuWeather are coming together tomorrow, Wednesday, Jan. 25, to discuss the continuing challenges that wildfires present to our communities and businesses. The teams will provide information on the forecast data solutions available to help mitigate the risk of wildfires to land, lives, and property. Notably, they will present a collaborative proof of concept project: Wildfire and Smoke Evolution Mapping.
WFCA’s Disaster Damage Assessment Program
Leveraging innovative technology and operational expertise, WFCA can now provide comprehensive ground-based assessments of disaster impacts within 72 hours of loss. This allows quick access to the records of land and property in order to get an accurate picture of the market value loss and assessed value loss, and efficiently leverages this intelligence to commanders and planners.
Access to this information helps local and state leaders understand the tax impacts of the damage, allows homeowners a view on the status of their property, and provides insurance companies accurate measures and information. The WFCA, through new digital technology, is continuing to create more efficient methods for incident commanders, planners, and community leaders to deal with the consequences of disasters.
Click here to visit our webpage and learn more.
Sourcewell Launches Online Buying Platform “Buy Sourcewell”
As leaders in the space of fire service cooperative procurement, WFCA developed the program that is now Sourcewell, your FireRescue GPO. While the cooperative contracts available through this program greatly expedited the departments’ procurement process, there were still many manual aspects of the experience that could be improved. In fact, over the years we regularly heard from fire chiefs that they wanted an online buying experience that was easy and quick, much like they were used to when doing personal online shopping.
Creating a procurement compliant online shopping process likely won’t work for everything fire departments purchase, but Sourcewell has taken one step closer to this reality. The online portal Buy Sourcewell was launched last year and has been continually improving and expanding ever since. This portal allows for a more enhanced search of Sourcewell awarded suppliers, as well as the ability to request quotes directly from the platform. For those suppliers that have the capability to integrate online transactions, the procurement compliant Buy Sourcewell platform offers a streamlined online buying experience to their customers.
Buy Sourcewell is easy to navigate – just click here to create a unique user login and remember to visit the site the next time you need to make a purchase to see what has been added!
WFCA’s Weekly Wildfire Articles
WFCA is pleased to have published 12 new articles throughout Q4 on a variety of wildfire topics. Check out our latest additions, from What To Do After a Wildfire and When and Where do Wildfires Occur, to The Financial Cost of Wildfire, and the 10 Largest Wildfires in U.S. History. Our weekly publications answer commonly asked questions about wildfire and outline simple steps that communities and individuals can take to prepare.
Follow & Share
We post each weekly article on our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We welcome your agency to follow us and share this free educational content with your community members!
Top 3 Most Clicked Stories
Similar to most news organizations, the Daily Dispatch tracks clicks to gauge interest and identify the types of stories that catch our readers’ attention. We know our readers especially enjoy articles that include multimedia such as video and photos. We hope you enjoy revisiting the most clicked stories from this quarter.
#1
Fire department in New York welcomes 1947 Mack fire truck back to Oceanside
SOURCE: LONG ISLAND HERALD
#2
Florida firefighter invents tool now used across America
SOURCE: WBBH-TV NBC 2 FORT MYERS
#3
Sheriff in Oregon threatened with arrest while arresting Forest Service burn boss
SOURCE: THE BLUE MOUNTAIN EAGLE
Don’t let legal backyard burning turn into an out-of-control wildfire. Join the Burn Permits App community and see where the smoke is coming from. Available to agencies within the Western Division.