RECORD

ing in a variety of sports from pickleball, tennis and volleyball to skiing, kayaking and paddleboarding. On top of that, he’s a gymnast and was on the team both in high school and college. So when he moved to Evergreen in 2012, he wanted to get back on the rings, his chosen apparatus, to improve his skills.

He was happy Wulf Recreation Center allows adults to use the apparatus, and he has been training since then. But what is training without a goal?

Estis, who also serves on the Evergreen Park & Recreation District’s board of directors, contacted Guinness World Records to see if it would consider adding the category for the record for the oldest man performing a planche, and Guinness said yes.

To meet the Guinness requirements, Estis had to nd an Fédération Internationale de Gymnastiqueregulation gymnastics studio with certi ed judges to chronicle his feat. He found Golden Gymnastics in Lakewood and owner Steve Artemis, who is certi ed.

On March 14, Estis took the challenge, wearing a College of William & Mary T-shirt to honor his alma mater’s gymnastics team. He also honored William & Mary coach Cli Gauthier, a University of Denver graduate who began coaching gymnastics 50 years ago. Estis wore the hand grips he used in college, and still has his original gym bag and varsity jacket.

With his sons Brad and Ian, partner Kathy Fasold, and Molly Weber, gymnastics team coordinator at the Wulf Recreation Center, watching, Estis performed the planche for three seconds, a second longer than necessary. After he was through, there was some concern that the video camera used to chronicle the feat didn’t work, so, naturally, Estis did the planche again. work that helps prepare the area in case there’s a wild re.

Fasold said reaching the goal was good for Estis, and she hoped he didn’t get injured performing the skill.

Artemis said this was the rst time a Guinness World Record was set at Golden Gymnastics. As a judge, he said he was looking to make sure Estis had control while performing the skill. And he did.

“We have used community concerns as a road map to our approach to wild re preparedness,” Jess Moore, wildland project coordinator, told the re board and some of the community ambassadors. She said the department needed the roadmap rst, so it could take a systematic approach to preparing for wild re.

“If (someone on the team) leaves, then the processes are in place, so the next person knows how to continue the program,” Moore said. “It isn’t about the individual.”

Community ambassadors are volunteers who work with the re department to educate and promote mitigation on homeowners’ properties and home hardening to try to prevent homes from catching re. Community ambassadors serve plan units that were identi ed in the department’s Community Wild re Protection Plan. From the CWPP come the Community Wild re Protection Implementation Plans or CWPIPs.

Moore said threats to EFR’s program are people believing that preparing for wild re will be solved quickly and there is only one way forward.

“ is is our community problem,” Moore said. “ ere are many ways we are going to chip away at this massive problem.”

EFR has divided the wild re prevention tasks into two areas: Moore is responsible for education and planning, while Matt White, re and fuels coordinator, is responsible for operations.

In October 2021, Cindy Latham, representing 39 people community ambassadors, told the re board they have seen little progress on the recommendations to be prepared in case of a catastrophic wild re, especially concerning since the foothills are at the top of the list in the country for the threat of catastrophic wild re.

She asked that EFR’s slash chipping crew be dedicated solely to that work rather than being detailed to res in other places, that the department perform 1,000 home re-risk assessments per year, that obtaining grants to help pay for wild re mitigation, especially along evacuation routes, become a priority, and that meetings between EFR wildland re personnel and the community lead-

Education, planning e department also has spent the last 16 months creating data tracking, so it can better direct resources.

Moore said one of the re department’s strengths was its community involvement, and the department has the obligation to educate and enable the community ambassadors so they can do their jobs.

“ e ambassadors are fully available and willing to help us get the work done,” Moore said.

When Moore started with EFR in October 2021, it had 13 active community ambassadors; now there is activity in all but one of the 26 plan units. Moore has created processes to give ambassadors a playbook to engage with neighbors and educate them about the mitigation work that needs to be done.

“ e problem is heavy,” Moore said. “Everyone who comes into the re service does it because they want to do the right thing. It is a passion. We are helpers. When we are presented with a big problem, we dive in and try to x it, but if we don’t have the infrastructure or pro-

In 2022, the department did more than 450 defensible-space inspections and chipped slash at more than 140 homes. With a grant to hire another mitigation specialist, Moore said she hopes the department can perform more than 1,000 inspections in 2023.

In addition, EFR is working with a variety of other groups to ensure that wild re mitigation is being done on a broader scope.

Operations

e EFR fuels crew works each year on strategic projects to help remove hazardous fuels, and this work is a tool, not the solution to prepare for wild re, White said. e district plans to do more slash-pile burning in winter 2024 to help get rid of slash.

“ e crew will go on assignments to assist other agencies with their wild re and other emergencies, so our folks continue to build quali cations and experience,” White said. e fuels crew now is taking on projects that make sense for what the crew can accomplish and what it is best at, and with projects that and CWPIPs, White said.

“We were taking on projects that were too big for our crew to handle, so we overpromised and underdelivered,” he said. “Moving forward, we are trying to do a better job of charging a more appropriate rate, being more conservative with time estimates to compete projects, and taking on more realistic projects to maximize the fuels crew’s e ectiveness.” e re district charges other organizations such as Je co Open Space and Denver Mountain Parks for doing mitigation work. e chipping program will create a more organized method to chip slash, moving from one area of the district to the next rather than a piecemeal approach, so more chipping will be completed each year, White said.

Moore said the October 2021 meeting was a wakeup call to the district, and while sta wanted to immediately jump in and start helping, “we had to spend a year to get our arms around it … and we are going to chip away at this massive problem.”