Hiawassee nationally recognized as Firewise Community

HIAWASSEE, Ga. – The City of Hiawassee was recently recognized as a National Firewise Community by state and local firefighters eager to welcome the loss prevention project to the county seat.

The National Firewise Communities Program is an interagency project that encourages partnerships among communities, homeowners, private industry, tribes, public agencies, and officials to develop and implement local solutions for wildfire preparedness – before a fire starts.

“Firewise is something that effects us all,” Michael Courey, Chairman of the Towns County Firewise Coalition, said. “Indeed, it’s one of the programs we use in the country, which there are about 1500 FireWise communities in this country, and in 2002, they started with 12 as a pilot program to see if it would work. And the whole purpose of it is to decrease the likelihood that there would be property damage or loss of life due to wildfires. Now I came up here to live in an area of the woods, in an area that is nestled in the trees. Little did I know coming from asphalt-city of Tampa that there was such a thing as wildfires. Of course, that happened to people in California, and certainly didn’t happen to people in Hiawassee and Young Harris or Towns County, but indeed, it certainly can.”

Courey warned that area homes are a “pile of fuel ready for a forest fire to take over.”

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“So when a community says. like Hiawassee and Young Harris as a city, that we are going to take action to try and decrease the likelihood that our town will become a Gatlinburg; Can you prevent it? No, but you can help it not happen,” Courey explained. “Can you imagine an 82-year-old person, been living in Gatlinburg all their life, and them saying, ‘What’s this wildfire stuff? I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never seen anything of significance take hold as far as a fire.’ Well, wait a couple of minutes, and you know what happened to Gatlinburg.”

In late 2016, nearly 18,000 acres of forestland were consumed by fire in the Gatlinburg, TN, area, destroying 2,460 structures.

Georgia has 109 recognized Firewise communities, 23 of which are located in Towns County.

Courey saluted “the city, and the city council, and the mayor for taking action” and enabling Hiawassee to decrease flammable areas at risk.