Regional Wildfire Resilience Program: A Reimagining of Wildfire Planning
Anne-Marie's work with the Santa Barbara Fire Safe Council shows just what a determined Bren graduate can accomplish. She has brought the community together around wildfire preparedness and built a thriving organization that partners with scientists, landowners, government agencies, and community organizations for resilience.
—Sarah Anderson, Interim Dean, Bren School
ABSTRACT
Recent catastrophic wildfires have caused policy makers to reprioritize and rethink wildfire planning efforts. Large multi-jurisdictional efforts with agencies leading the charge are underway to understand gaps and solutions so communities can move towards wildfire resiliency, e.g. CA Wildfire Resilient Task Force, National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. These efforts are needed to address the legislative and policy barriers to wildfire mitigation, but these top-down efforts falter when it comes to implementing change in a region as counties often lack a leader with a cohesive and coordinated plan and a strategic vision to create a fire-adapted region. The Regional Wildfire Mitigation Program (RWMP) provides a much-needed, implementation-based framework for a focal (non-agency) organization to facilitate a holistic and collaborative approach to wildfire resilience through built environment, landscape, and community programming. Wildfire mitigation efforts often focus on mitigations to the landscape, particularly through thinning and fuel breaks. However, the pathway to wildfire resilience requires a multi-faceted, community centric approach since these domains - landscape, built environment, and communities - are interconnected. The RWMP is a novel pilot program in coastal Santa Barbara, California, with the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council (SBCFSC), a nonprofit, as the lead.
BIO
After nearly losing her home in the 2007 Witch Creek Fire in San Diego, Anne-Marie developed a lifelong passion for wildfire education—ensuring communities are prepared for when, not if, the next fire comes. She earned her Master’s degree from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB in 2021 and has several years of experience in fire ecology. As a Research Associate at UCSB, she led projects in chaparral and conifer forests, studying post-fire regeneration and how environmental conditions shape burn severity.
Anne-Marie joined the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council in 2021 as its first employee, serving as Program Manager before becoming Executive Director. She leads a team dedicated to building resilient local networks and strengthening community capacity to live with wildfire through preparedness, response, and recovery. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from one to eight staff members and expanded its grant portfolio from $950,000 to $12 million in just four years.