We have just completely finished the first of our 11 counties, Greene County – a milestone for the CWPP Team! Greene County was one of our fastest counties to finish because there were only five fire districts – Bull Head, Castoria, Fort Run, Scuffleton/Little Creek, and Shine – and because we conducted all five interviews simultaneously. As it was one of our first meetings, we were all slightly nervous to have to split up the teams we had created and to each take one district, which would require us to record all the interview data by writing it down rather than simply typing it into the database. We approached the evening meeting after some important preparations (primarily obtaining coffee) and we laid out the maps of our assigned districts and waited anxiously for the fire chiefs to arrive. The interviews started soon afterwards and went quite smoothly, with all of us finishing up in just over an hour, which were our fastest interviews yet! We celebrated our impressive performance by driving back home and falling asleep immediately, sleeping in a well-deserved extra hour. In addition to finishing Greene County, we’ve almost finished up with Jones County. Our time in Jones was quite short as there were only three fire districts – Comfort, Hargett’s Crossroads, and Wyse Fork – where we finished the interviews in just two days. We’ll be meeting up again with Wayne, the Jones County forest ranger, this week to finalize the database and hand off the final fire district maps. Although we weren’t there for long, we made an impression Wayne and the other North Carolina Forest Service (NCFS) employees, who graciously offered to cook us a homemade meal. They made us shrimp boil, a southern dish containing sausage, potatoes, corn, and, of course, shrimp, as well as fried zucchini and sweet tea. We chatted with the NCFS employees and had a great time. More updates from Onslow, Carteret, and Craven counties will be coming soon!
