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History
of UPEPC
As long-term drought focused attention nationwide on the potential
dangers of wildland fire, the Wind River District of the US Forest
Service called a meeting of area residents to discuss the specific
conditions that were being identified in the Union Pass area relative
to that danger. That meeting was the trigger event that has evolved
over the past several years into a much broader based program, including
the grass-roots organization of residents that we call UPEPC (most
easily pronounced U-Pepsi).
The UPEPC was officially founded in the spring of 2003, representing
a set of ten small subdivisions (300+ individual properties) of mostly
part-time residents, all branching out along an 8-10 mile main county
road leading into the Shoshone National Forest, which, along with
some BLM land, bounds the subdivisions. Though its official structure
is still minimal, the UPEPC has begun to focus on the work that needs
to be done within and by the neighborhood to lessen the impact of
fire endangerment due to the preponderance of vast stands of Lodgepole
Pine with which we are surrounded.
However, the organization did not happen without a series of contacts
and assistance from other organizations along the way. Our first long-term
source of advice and inspiration as a neighborhood came through the
Wyoming Division of Forestry and Mark "Oly" Ellison. Oly
enlisted a local resident to serve as part-time coordinator for what
became the "Fremont County Wildland Fire Management Project"
and the educational part of specifics that needed immediate attention
began.
 It
soon became apparent that the scope of the project needs would require
full-time professional management, and Shad Cooper was hired by our
county fire district to coordinate and guide the next steps to extensive
concrete actions. Additional prior groundwork was laid through Shad's
immediate and extensive focus on research, setting of objectives,
and communications contacts among a myriad of related agencies. A
community produced emergency information survey project was created
to acquire voluntary data from individual property owners that would
help local emergency responders.
At that point, to complement and enhance the work that Shad was undertaking
on our behalf, we knew we needed more than just our loose group we
called the "steering committee" and evolve a more structured
and coordinated area-wide entity. With a statement of purpose and
a set of proposed projects hammered out, and with Shad's connections
with Firewise in place, we then reached out to the entire Union Pass
community for general membership support and participation.
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