2023 PROGRAM
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Introduction
- Mason Thurmond, Ventura County Resource Conservation District
Tribal Blessing
- Alan Salazar, Tribal Storyteller, Indigenous Educator, Spiritual Advisor, and Published Author
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Welcome
- Dustin Gardner, Fire Chief, Ventura County Fire Department
Keynote Speakers
- California's Focus on Community Resiliency
- Daniel Berlant, State Fire Marshal, CAL FIRE
- Reviving Indigenous Fire Knowledge Globally
- Victor Steffensen, Indigenous Writer, Filmmaker, Musician, Traditional Knowledge Practitioner, and Co-Founder, Firesticks Alliance
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Networking/Lunch: 1:00 - 2:00 PM
Table Talks: 2:00 – 2:20 PM
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Bison Pipe & Supply LLC
Les Carberry: The Bison Tough Portable, No-Weld, Jack Fence System
Designed in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and tested in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, this system was built to withstand harsh natural conditions, while allowing wildlife to pass through safely AND containing herds or pedestrians to designated areas. This product offers several key features: it is rugged yet lightweight, complies with BLM standards, and can be easily DIY-installed, making it ideal for hard-to-reach areas accessible only by air or UTV. There is no need for post holes or welding, and it is fire-resistant with capped tops to protect bird wildlife. Terrain-specific adapters are available. And it is reusable, making it very cost effective. It is used by land trust organizations (NGOs), the US Forest Service, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for example, as well as private ranchers. In terms of applications, it is extremely versatile, serving purposes such as riparian area recovery, livestock and equine containment, and pedestrian and traffic control, to name a few.
CAL FIRE - Office of the State Fire Marshal
Chief Frank Bigelow: Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation Division
The Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation Division works with federal, state, and local agencies, Native American tribes, non-profit entities, and other stakeholders to prepare California communities against the devastating effects of wildfire. The various programs within the division allow CAL FIRE to continue to build local and regional capacity, as well as developing, prioritizing, and implementing strategies and projects that create wildfire prepared communities. The tasks involve working with stakeholders on wildfire planning to reduce or eliminate fire hazards and risks, modifying the environment by removing or reducing receptive fuels, conducting fire hazard compliance inspections, and providing education and grant opportunities for wildfire prevention efforts.
California Fire Safe Council
Jacy Hyde, Jessica Martinez, Amber Gardner, and Britney Munoz: California's Leader in Community Wildfire Risk Reduction and Resiliency
The California Fire Safe Council (CFSC) provides resources, tools, support, and the latest information, so that California communities can be better prepared for wildfire and its aftermath. A statewide umbrella organization, the California Fire Safe Council supports more than 255 local Fire Safe Councils around the state, with educational materials, training, grant funding, statewide coordination, and support for fire-safe-state coordinated efforts.
Coalition of Fire Safe Communities
Don Schmitz: Wet Defensible Fire Breaks
Discuss Wet Defensible Fire Breaks as a solution to wildfires. Examine locations of where this solution may work and how to best incorporate it into our communities.
FlameMapper
Shea Broussard, Chief Greg Barton, and Gabriel Etcheverry: New Public Safety Infrastructure: Supporting out-of-area first responders during large wildfire events
Learn how city leaders have incorporated lessons from recent disasters in order to improve situational awareness for out-of-area first responders. Join a discussion of how two cities, Beverly Hills and Malibu, have installed Beacon Boxes in wildfire-prone neighborhoods to improve the effectiveness and safety of firefighters and other public safety personnel.
If & When, Inc.
Michael Flaster: On Becoming Your Own First Responder
If & When, Inc. holds four national and four international patents for the STTATT Emergency Station which harnesses new battery storage and wireless communications technology to defend properties in the event of wildfires, allowing homeowners, communities and businesses to act as their own first responders in the critical minutes before professional help can arrive.
PumpPodUSA
Bill Ward: Why not Harden the Whole Community at 16,000 Acres at a Time?
We raise the question… Why not Harden Whole Communities at 16,000 Acers (25 Square Miles) at a time? We propose surging a “Dual Track Solution of 1.6 million Acre Hazard and Risk Mitigation Project to Protect the Public Now” that can be completed in 6 – 9 months. While not interrupting but enhancing the current Mitigation efforts and projects. We all agree we would like the Vegetation Mitigation and Home Hardening to progress faster. But the reality is it is taking much longer to treat the Acres, Harden the Homes and increase Scale and Capacity of the equipment and workforce than first thought and projected. Which means significant portions of the WUI, and its residents are still in critical danger from Wildfire. The average Mitigation cost is now over $2,000 an acre! This Proposal will cost $5.00 to $10 per Acre or a total cost of $8,000,000 and can scale very quickly once funding is secured.
WRA Environmental Consulting
Peter Kobylarz: Resilient Data - Enhancing your Organization’s Data for Effective Wildfire Preparation, Mitigation, and Response
Sign up to learn more about WRA and how spatial data and analysis is critical to wildfire preparation, mitigation, and recovery efforts!
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Community planning provides an opportunity to address wildfire risk for both new and existing development. This session will look at best practices, requirements, resources, and considerations for each and how different audiences can participate.
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Keynote Speakers
- Enabling Beneficial Fire
- Marion Wittmann PhD, Program Officer, Wildfire Resilience Initiative, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Marion Wittmann PhD, Program Officer, Wildfire Resilience Initiative, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Take A Little, Leave A Little...
- Frank Frievalt, Director, Cal Poly WUI FIRE Institute
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Networking/Lunch: 1:00 - 2:00 PM
Table Talks: 2:00 – 2:20 PM
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Ascent
Erik de Kok and Luis Montes: Fire-Adapted Communities Roadmap and Dashboard
Erik de Kok (Ascent’s Director of Interdisciplinary Planning) and Luis Montes (Ascent’s Community Engagement Specialist) will give a brief overview of the Fire-Adapted Communities (FAC) Roadmap and Dashboard project. Ascent is leading this strategic planning effort in collaboration with the FAC Working Group established under the Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, with funding and support from CAL FIRE and Resources Legacy Fund. Erik and Luis will share some of the key findings from recent FAC Working Group discussions and research efforts, followed by a short lightning-round discussion on priorities for accelerating the pace and scale of community-focused actions.
Coalitions and Collaborative
Mitch Dahlke: A Pre-fireside Chat with COCO
Staying true to COCO's mission, "To advance healthy and resilient communities through collaborative conservation and restoration", this informal talk will highlight the Mitigation Guiding Principles so we can use them to facilitate discussion around the challenges your communities are facing. Together, we'll identify issues and potential solutions to overcome the obstacles stagnating your mitigation momentum.
Ladris AI
Leo Zlimen: AI for Community Readiness and Evacuation Planning
In a rapidly evolving world, preparedness is non-negotiable. Leo Zlimen, Ladris CEO, will discuss the role of AI combined with local operator expertise in bolstering community readiness for evacuation preplanning and operations, driven by recent California legislative actions and mandates such as Senate Bill 99 and Assembly Bill 747.
Perimeter Solutions
Chris Thompson: PHOS-CHEK® Fire Retardant: Aerial Drops to Ground Applications
Please join us as we discuss the newest long-term fire retardant products available today and how these tools are currently being used in the wildland firefighting industry. From aerial retardant drops to precise ground applications, PHOS-CHEK has remained the industry leader in long-term fire retardant for over 60 years.
Team Rubicon
Jim Kniss: Built to Serve
Team Rubicon is an international non-profit disaster response organization that unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy disaster response teams, free of charge to communities affected by disasters across the country. Using that same model, we are also joining the efforts of local fire departments and fire safe councils to assist in fuel modification projects that otherwise might not be able to be completed.
Tekniam LLC
Kevin Griffith: Resilient Communications and Situational Awareness
Wildfire response is ever more data driven. Broader contextual information, including video, maps and modeling, provides greater situational awareness. Existing communications systems are not always capable of such file exchange, and interoperability issues have created gaps. The networks that carry them are not always available, whether because of rural/rugged terrain or fire damage. These issues and the current slate of options will be discussed.
Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
Pamela Wyville & Kelly Brown: Leaning on Partnerships in Times of Disaster
As a source of critical services year-round, local community and faith-based organizations are inundated with requests for information and assistance in disasters and recovery. These organizations with their strong local partner networks and trusted client relationships can meet community members in need where they are. Pamela and Kelly will discuss how these organizations pivot from their regular operations to aid their clients when disaster occurs, and some of the innovative solutions they have developed to connect diverse communities to up-to-date resources for disaster information translation, food, shelter, transportation, back-up batteries, safe medication storage and more.
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- Closing Remarks
- Mason Thurmond, Coordinator of Ventura County Wildfire Collaborative, VCRCD
On Day 3, join us for tours to learn more about wildfire adaptivity in Ventura County.
Objectives
- Provide first-hand learning opportunities for practitioner and community-focused attendees
- Create an environment conducive to networking and community building
FIELD TOUR #1
Restoration in the Largest Urban Park:
Navigating Wildfire, Climate Change and Invasive Species
Location: Rancho Sierra Vista
Join to learn about wildfire’s intersection with the restoration program for the world’s largest urban national park. Learn about common challenges resource managers of chaparral vegetation communities face, including climate change, invasive species, and excessive wildfires. Gain hands-on experience in program techniques, including restoring native habitats and propagating plants at the Rancho Sierra Vista Native Plant Nursery. On this tour, you’ll hear from resource managers and work side by side with them as they carry out the practices that have made this work successful. Topics include wildfire adaptation, outplanting techniques, watering strategies and regimes, restoration site selection, seed collection and cleaning operations, nursery propagation operations, and more.
Click Here for More Information on Field Tour #1
Antonio Sanchez is the nursery manager and restoration volunteer outreach coordinator for SAMOFund in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The nursery grows over 80,000 native plants a year for restoration purposes, and supplies over 20,000 a year to the public, free of charge, for urban restoration. Antonio has over 15 years experience with California native plants, having run the nursery at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, working as a landscaper at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and working as a nursery technician at the Theodore Payne Foundation for native plants. Antonio co-founded and ran Nopalito Native Plant Nursery in Ventura, CA, with a good friend and a cousin, for nearly 4 years. He was lead organizer for the first Ventura County Native Plant Symposium, the California Native Sage Festival, the California Native Food Symposium, and the Southern California Monarch and Milkweed Conference. He is also a co-founder of the native plant band Sage Against the Machine.
Matt is the principal restoration field lead for the Santa Monica Mountains. He works to install over 50,000 native plants yearly, from cactus scrub to oak woodlands restoring degraded former ranch lands into thriving plant communities. Additionally, he manages the timed mowing project of invasive grasslands in an effort to manage fuels for fire reduction and encourage native plant recolonization. Under the direction of the Restoration Ecologist Joseph Algiers, he and the restoration crew conduct targeted removal of high priority invasive species throughout the recreation area. Matt has an Bachelors in Environmental Science, and a Master of Science in Biology.
FIELD TOUR #2 SOLD OUT
Wildfire Mitigation and Adaptive Management Practices:
Prescribed Grazing and Burning
Credit: Ventura Brush Goats | Copyright: Hagerty Ryan, USFWS | Prescribed Fire Training Exchange
Location: Ojai Valley
Visit the Prescribed Grazing and Burning Tour to learn about the on-the-ground use of these techniques such as wildfire mitigation and adaptive management practices. You will hear from local business owners spearheading prescribed grazing in the region and beyond at a field site in Ojai Valley, along with emerging prescribed burn practitioners at a nearby burn location. These prescriptive practices are a key tool in the community wildfire prevention toolkit and continue to increase in scale as stakeholder interest grows. Each technique has costs and benefits, which we will discuss in addition to how specific prescriptions are planned and implemented. During this tour, you will gain a first-hand understanding of prescribed grazing and burning and better understand how these practices are tools your community could benefit from.
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Michael runs a family owned weed abatement and soil improvement service based in Ventura County. At Ventura Brush Goats, they graze fire-breaks and eliminate invasive brush while restoring natural fertility with their goat herd. Learning as he went, Michael grew his operation from a couple of dairy goats in his backyard in 2018 to 750 animals today that graze and fertilize across Ventura County. He is also the Co-Director of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council’s Community-Supported Grazing Program.
FIELD TOUR #3 SOLD OUT
Recovering from the Thomas Fire:
Via Ondulando Firewise Community
Location: Via Ondulando
Join us for a tour highlighting the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Ondulando Community almost 6 years post-Thomas Fire. The Ondulando Community was severely impacted by the Ventura County mega-fire, with over 50% of homes in the neighborhood lost. The tour will showcase how rebuilding continues even today, how some folks have rebuilt with wildfire resilience in mind, and how the devastation spurred the grassroots effort led by the Firewise Ondulando Board to organize to continue lowering the future risk of wildfire in the community.
This field tour is brought to you in part by the generous support of Fire Aside.
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The tour will also give participants the opportunity to hear lessons learned from the Ventura City and Ventura County Fire Departments, what they are doing differently now, and how regulatory changes in Sacramento are likely to affect their operations and policies. You will learn about the roles Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council and the fire departments can play to assist in the cultivation and reach of grassroots groups. You will gain a hands-on understanding of how home hardening can boost the odds of preventing house-to-house conflagration. You will discuss the challenges of the local insurance market with the Insurance Commissioner’s Office and the benefits of achieving Firewise status. Most importantly, you will hear and see the stories of a community navigating insurance payouts and mountains of paperwork, dealing with damage, choosing to return to their community rather than leave, and what it means to rise from the ashes.
FIELD TOUR #4
Stewardship of the WUI:
Fuel Load Management in Harmon Canyon
Learn from the Stewardship Director of the Ventura Land Trust about the complexities of performing fuel load reduction along the Wildland-Urban Interface. Home to rugged mountains, chaparral, coastal sage scrub, rivers, and plenty of humans, the WUI in Ventura County has been the landfall for some of California’s largest fires. It is crucial to strike a balance between reducing wildfire risk to urban and suburban communities, and conserving and restoring native habitat. You will learn about Ventura Land Trust’s successes and challenges working in this endeavor in a post Thomas Fire landscape. Discuss the problems with "clear-cutting" along the WUI and considerations taken to address erosion risk on steep slopes adjacent to homes. This tour will highlight the perspective of land managers.
Location: Harmon Canyon Preserve
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Dan Hulst is the Stewardship Director for Ventura Land Trust (VLT). In this role, Dan oversees public access across VLT preserves and helps direct field staff in carrying out restoration projects. Additionally, Dan manages neighbor relationships with the approximately 100 landowning neighbors who live adjacent to VLT preserves. In addition to these tasks, Dan is focused on opening a new publicly accessible nature preserve called Mariano Rancho, located just north of the City of Ventura. Under Dan’s purview is the management of fuel loads along approximately 2.5 miles of WUI within an Extremely High Fire Severity Zone.
Dan graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Business. While working in the for-profit industry, he started volunteering with VLT in 2016. When an open position came around in 2018, he jumped on it. Dan’s first role at VLT was focused on collecting trash in the Ventura River, and he is proud to have served VLT in many different capacities. Dan enjoys spending time outside on trails and in the ocean. He lives in Ventura with his partner and dog.