Minimizing Wildfire Risk with MapItFast and Strider
Teton Conservation District was established in 1946 to promote the conservation and stewardship of natural resources through local projects, partnerships, research, and education. The District boundaries encompass all of Teton County, Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, and Wyoming’s portion of Yellowstone National Park. The District office is located in Jackson, Wyoming.
Robb Sgroi is the Land Resources Specialist for Teton Conservation District. He contacted AgTerra while searching for an efficient reporting solution for the Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. “The program includes field consultations with private landowners where we advise them on how to reduce wildfire risk on their property,” explains Sgroi. “After meeting with a landowner and developing an overview of conditions and voluntary recommendations, a written report is produced for the landowner. This serves as a basis for their future actions.”
Sgroi recalls the evaluation and reporting process before he began working with Strider forms and reports. “Transcribing field notes, referring to language from the written standards we utilize, and formatting pictures and graphics was cumbersome and time-consuming.” Because the process was so time-consuming, the program was limited in the quantity of clients it could serve each season. Since the implementation of Strider forms in the spring of this year, Sgroi said, “the use of this software allowed us to meet nearly every client’s request for service, which is an unpredictable workload. We produced over 60 overviews this year”
When asked about his future plans for the AgTerra software, Sgroi said, “In the future, we will continue to communicate with colleagues working with the public in fire prevention and wildfire risk reduction to offer the tools that we developed with AgTerra. We hope other entities can take the form we built and utilize and improve upon it in order to facilitate their work.”
AgTerra’s team has been outstanding to work with. Other entities highly recommended AgTerra to us, in part because of their customer service. AgTerra was instrumental in developing the first version of our Strider Form, from scratch. Our agency has made dozens of modifications to the Strider form over the past six months. AgTerra’s team has implemented these adjustments with a high degree of professionalism and cooperation. They have been dedicated to the success of our product.” – Robb Sgroi, Teton Conservation District
Watch the video below to see how the Wildfire Risk Reduction Program is being implemented in the Teton Conservation District.
Video courtesy of Teton Conservation District.