John Scarffe, Pinecliffe. Students from New Vista High School in Boulder came to Pinecliffe on Tuesday, October 15. About seven students, led by mathematics instructor Hunter Chen, participated in a community service project to haul slash for fire mitigation.

They were joined by the staff of  Wildfire Partners, the Pinecliffe Association and John Scarffe, owner of the house where the project took place. New Vista High School takes a week off every year for students to participate in community service projects.

With a background in fire mitigation, Chen likes to  lead fire mitigation projects during the community service week. Having worked with Wildfire Partners before, Chen reached out to ask if there would be a project for his students. 

Originally called the Upper Dudley cabin, the Scarffe Family house, owned jointly by John and his two sons Brendan and Kendall, was built in 1901 and was a single room partially on posts. 

A church group in Iowa would ride the train to Pinecliffe and then use oxen and burros to haul building materials up the hill to the Association. John’s grandfather, Frank Welle, bought the cabin in 1941. A master plumber in Denver, Welle and his brother added porches for a kitchen and bedroom and installed a bathroom.

They blasted out a basement from the rock on which the house is built, and added a garage, work room, bedroom and bath with a shower. Later, a deck was closed in as an additional room and a metal roof was added.

The house was surrounded by trees, mainly Ponderosa Pines. Wildfire Partners completed an assessment of the property and the house, marking more than 30 trees in Zone One to be cut down, as well as recommending improvements on the outside to reduce the chance of fire embers starting a fire in the house.

Since the property desperately needed fire mitigation, he called his nephew Isaac Hamilton, asking if he could cut some trees to get ready for the high school group. On Sunday, October 13, he and his friend Travis cut down 15 trees on the property near the house.

They were joined by Coal Creek Canyon Resident Linda Martin, who also leads Saws and Slaws, a fire mitigation group in Coal Creek, and agreed to help as a volunteer. Several of the trees were close to the house, so they would use a come-along and a chain to hook to the tree being cut down and tilt the tree in the direction they wanted it to go.

After cinching the come-along, Hamilton would use a chainsaw to cut wedges out of the tree, and after cinching hard, the very tall pines would crash to the ground.

The next day, Hamilton, Travis, Linda Martin, Lammers and others gathered to cut the slash from the logs. They stacked them in piles near the logs where they had been cut.

On Tuesday, New Vista students began arriving at 9 a.m. Leslie Brodhead, Wildfire Partners Program Specialist, provided students with an orientation, and the students learned about zones around a house that need to be mitigated. Sarah Regan, an assistant with the program, worked with the students as well.

Students included Joey Seigel, William Butler, Diego Sermenovroz, Izak Bordan, and Alana Valette. Students worked together to lift the heaver branches, then dragged them to the road, stacking them in piles.  As the students went back and forth at a quick pace, they made swift work of the piles, completing most of the work by lunch. 

After lunch, the group completed cleaning the slash and starting a smaller pile on the road leading to the house.

By about 1:30 p.m. the group finished the project. Cutting down more trees will have to wait for the summer.

With the teamwork between John, the students and Wildfire Partners, his house is now safer against the threat of wildfires.  Wildfire Partners provides assessments free to homeowners who are new to the program.  More information is available through their website, www.wildfirepartners.org.

(Originally published in the October 24, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)