The California Fire Safe Council gave grant money to the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council chipping program in 2004, which created a secondary benefit that no one had anticipated. One community got free chipping and became a safer place to live by the simple use of reflective signs.

While trying to find a home for a meeting place one dark evening in March 2004 in the community of Placerville on Chrome Ridge Road, Fire Captain John Beaver suggested that the first order of business was the need for reflective home signs.

Meeting organizer Jana Newman, of the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council Chipping Program, brought her slide presentation showing, among other fire safety tips, the chipping program and a photo of a reflective home number sign. Over 15 homeowners took advantage of the chipping program since that initial meeting but an equally important safety issue was "addressed."

Hoping to become safer by getting 100% address sign coverage of each home and street, just ten months later Captain Beaver returned to our community to watch the 46th homeowner (out of 50) receive a handmade metal reflective home number sign as a gift for just moving into our community. Also, we now have 6 out of 7 reflective street signs as well.

As a way of thanking the Fire Safe Council for creating the educational environment that made it possible for us to "see the light," so to speak, a neighborhood photographer, Bill Robinson, contributed day and night shots of our signs which appear in the Council's 2005 calendar and below.
 
 

Sign as seen during the day

Sign as seen at night