Good morning,

Since the last Thursday meeting, and now that everyone has gotten the Cleanup letter from the USFS, the tract leads for Fir, Bryant, Sayles and 47-mile tract have been trying to make a little more sense of what we should be doing. We have scheduled a meeting with the USFS Supervisor, Jeff Marsolais, reps, and the NFH this Sunday. Paul Hugo, one of the tract reps, drafted the message below to share what we are working on. I’ve asked Tim to log into the meeting if he can since he is going to be taking the lead on cleanup. I’ll let you know what we find out after the meeting Sunday. No rush really since we are expecting several feet of snow in the last few days. Our intent is to use the winter time to work on getting better answers so we can move forward with a plan.

Also, if you hadn’t heard, two suspects have been arrested for starting the fire. There are multiple news articles if you google the topic.

Message from Paul Hugo:

Subject:  Cleanup of FS cabins burned in the Caldor fire status update

Hi All,

We want to let you all know the status as we currently know it. 

We are meeting with the FS on Sunday and may have more information after that.  The NFH is also participating in the meeting.

In a nutshell, the cleanup procedure outlined in the letter sent by the FS is not finalized.  There are flaws that must be fixed before any of us can fully use it.   The biggest issue is the county has not yet agreed to administer the program.

We need to be very patient and let the process play out to an agreed upon outcome by all parties - FS, county, state and cabin owners - before we can do much.  Soon there will be snow and we won't be able to do anything until spring, so there is time.

There a number of people in our group working on many different angles to adjust the cleanup process to fit the cabins and to get the costs covered or reduced or...

We know that many of you have no insurance or are under insured and are worried the FS might come after you for the costs of cleanup.  This has never happened before, not to say it couldn't, but don't loose hope.  This will be discussed with the FS on Sunday.

We ask that you don't go to the Forest Service directly with questions.  Having to answer the same question for lots of people just wastes their time and leads to hasty actions.  We are convinced the cleanup letter fits into this - done in haste without proper review.  Please, please direct your question to your tract rep or Tony.  We may already have the answer.  We need to know the questions and we hopefully will have more clout in getting answers.

We will send additional information soon.