Image Courtesy: Lara Buluç
How Three Bren Graduates Are Advancing Wildfire Mitigation Across California Through the Wildfire County Coordinator Program
As California faces increasingly frequent and severe wildfires, three Bren alumni are shaping the state’s wildfire risk reduction and resilience infrastructure. Lara Buluç (MESM ’09), Anne-Marie Parkinson (MESM ’21), and Evert Vermeer (MESM ’23) all play a key role in the Wildfire County Coordinator Program — a statewide network of 47 County Coordinators and California Fire Safe Council (CFSC) staff supported through a partnership between Cal Fire and the CFSC.
The program is designed to address the cross-jurisdictional nature of wildfire risk by strengthening coordination among counties, state agencies, fire authorities, and community organizations. Wildfire County Coordinators operate at the local level to develop a nuanced understanding of community needs and elevate those insights to state-level decision-makers, helping inform policy and guide resource allocation. They serve as a vital local resource to secure funding, implement mitigation projects, engage vulnerable populations, and build resilience in high-risk communities.
At its core, this work rests on a simple principle: wildfire mitigation only succeeds when efforts are informed, coordinated, and effective — and Wildfire County Coordinators are central to that mission.
Bren Beginnings to Statewide Impact
Lara Buluç operates as the Wildfire County Coordinator Program Manager for the CFSC, drawing on years of experience and an interdisciplinary foundation to navigate statewide wildfire mitigation. After a 16-year career with the USDA Forest Service, she was drawn to a role that would allow her to scale local efforts across California.
For Buluç, “this role bridges the management space and the policy space almost every hour of every day.” Her work often begins with explaining the purpose and value of the Wildfire County Coordinator Program — an exercise in translation and trust-building. She notes that the Bren interdisciplinary curriculum “helps graduates to be able to bridge worlds and target messages accordingly,” preparing them to navigate complex cross-sector communication with clarity and impact.
Anne-Marie Parkinson shares a similar systems-level perspective in her role as Executive Director of the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council (SBFSC) and Santa Barbara County Coordinator. Though initially drawn to Bren’s data science curriculum, Parkinson ultimately chose to explore the communication, engagement, and education aspects of environmental management through her work at the SBFSC. After two years with the SBFSC, she became the organization’s first Executive Director, driven by the challenge of coordinating across institutions and building organizational capacity.
Evert Vermeer’s path in wildfire mitigation began during his first year at Bren, where he served as an outreach coordinator with Parkinson and the SBFSC. From there, he expanded his focus to fire mitigation, management, and hazard planning. Now a Wildfire Planning Specialist with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council and Ventura County Coordinator, Vermeer leads the development of Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) across the county. His responsibilities include securing funding, managing grants, and facilitating collaborative agreements between small communities and the agencies that represent them — including state and local partners. Reflecting on his experience, Vermeer shares, “The nature of the work has been so energizing. Getting to meet other Brennies through conferences and being on the same team has been great.”
Through their collaborative leadership, these alumni are helping California not only respond to wildfire risk today but also build the systems and relationships necessary for long-term resilience.
Learning and Leading Together
On November 21, 2025, Buluç, Parkinson, and Vermeer joined fellow CFSC staff and Wildfire County Coordinators at the Annual County Coordinator Workshop — a pivotal in-person gathering for the Wildfire County Coordinator Program focused on peer-to-peer learning and capacity building.
A survey administered at the workshop underscored the program’s growing impact. Counties supported by coordinators secured and implemented multi-million-dollar wildfire grants, expanded local staffing and technical capacity, and accelerated countywide planning efforts. On-the-ground results include fuel-reduction projects, evacuation-route planning, home assessments, and improved emergency readiness.
For many Wildfire County Coordinators, including Parkinson, the program’s value lies in its ability to facilitate effective funding and collaboration. She explains, “There is a need to have someone in the county who is the go-to for understanding who's doing what, to help make connections, bridge efforts, make things more efficient, and encourage partners to work together. So, we’re not duplicating efforts, and money is getting used effectively.”
The Wildfire County Coordinator Program exemplifies exactly this approach, turning coordination and expertise into tangible results for communities across California.
Bridging Science, Policy, and Practice
For these Bren alumni working in wildfire resilience, the Wildfire County Coordinator Program represents a larger shift in California’s approach to wildfire risk — from fragmented efforts to integrated, systems-level solutions. Buluç, Parkinson, and Vermeer are leveraging their Bren network and interdisciplinary training to build the connective infrastructure needed for effective wildfire mitigation, linking science to policy, policy to practice, and statewide strategy to community-level resilience.
“Policy is implemented sometimes without the consultation or really the input that would be most beneficial,” Vermeer notes. “The County Coordinator role helps address that.”
As California’s wildfire challenges evolve, Buluç, Parkinson, and Vermeer are playing a critical role in driving efforts that are strategically aligned and collaboratively executed. Their work ensures that resources are used efficiently and effectively to address the complex and growing threat of wildfires across the state.
County Coordinators at the Annual County Coordinator Workshop on November 21, 2025. Image Courtesy: California Fire Safe Council.
