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Open Space Advisory Board <br />Minutes <br />May 10, 2023 <br />Page 7 of 12 <br />Bill Szafranski presented his slides (see meeting packet) to both OSAB and OSAC. Meg <br />Matonis was present on Zoom and presented the second half of the discussion. The <br />project's objective was to identify wildfire risk hazards to and from public lands and to <br />develop mitigation suggestions for Louisville's public lands. The project will include <br />communication to citizens in open houses and a final report document. They are also <br />going to help the City research potential grants for mitigation work. <br />Mr. Szafranski shared several maps their team used in their modeling: maps that showed <br />high -value city properties, the wildland-urban interface (WUI), and land ownership. Other <br />maps showed state -level fire behavior modeling and how the team produced a wildfire <br />hazard metric: a combination of burn probability and fire intensity (flame length). He said <br />that the state would be shortly releasing an updated version of their fire behavior <br />modeling, which will be incorporated into his models as soon as it was available. These <br />maps were used to generate a map of the wildfire risk in Louisville. <br />The Ember Alliance is a not -for -profit alliance that helps communities and homeowners <br />work on wildfire mitigation and resilience. Dr. Matonis is a forest ecologist and firefighter <br />who worked on the part of this project that explored options for mitigation. She <br />emphasized that this work is both based on science and social conditions/values. <br />Her team evaluated twelve properties that are city -owned parcels and created 2-3 page <br />site summaries that describe each parcel's wildfire risk hazard, based on their specific <br />vegetation and fuel loads, their exposure and susceptibility, maintenance, and their <br />potential mitigation measures. She shared the document proposed for the <br />Recreation/Senior Center, showing the suggested potential mitigation strategies. <br />Dr. Matonis particularly pointed out that the wooden fences that back to open space <br />(privately owned) were concerning to her, but also noted that she did not see that there <br />had been any substantial mismanagement by the City on open space. She mentioned that <br />prairie dogs were probably helpful for creating discontinuous fire breaks. <br />Mr. Szafranski pointed out upcoming dates for this project, such as the second public <br />open house on May 24th. <br />Susan asked whether there was consideration of the life cycles of prairie grasses and the <br />wildlife habitat, when mowing is recommended. She was particularly concerned that <br />native grasses be given a chance to re -seed before they were mowed. Dr. Matonis noted <br />this is definitely a trade-off between mowing for fire mitigation and protecting habitat, <br />and suggested that one way to conserve height heterogeneity might be by grazing, as <br />grazers tend to work in patches. <br />9 <br />