What you do this fall could help you save your home and, should a major fire occur on the Santa Barbara front country, perhaps even your life.
Given drought conditions, increasing impacts from climate change and recent history of devastating wildfires in the late fall, being prepared for the next one is more critical now than ever.
The most recent Alisal Fire that occurred in October 2021 or the Thomas Fire a few years earlier in December 2017 indicate the need to be vigilant and be prepared.
To help the local community and homeowners who live in wildfire prone zones, the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council is holding its second annual exposition this weekend.
The mission of the event includes educating the public about wildfire and wildfire preparedness, along with providing residents the tools they need to be prepared for the next wildfire.
The two day event is planned for Friday, Oct. 14 and Saturday, Oct. 15 at Direct Relief, at 6100 Wallace Becknell Rd. in Goleta.
Paul Van Leer, president of the Fire Safe Council, is excited about the event given the success of last spring’s event.
The event will kick off Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. with a presentation from Park Williams, a professor of geography at UCLA.
“Have humans lost control of wildfire in the Western United States?” he asks, “And if so, why?”
Given the dramatic increase in the numbers of wildfires, acreage burned each year and impacts on fire prone areas like Santa Barbara County, understanding how to deal with what is becoming a more difficult proposition is more critical than ever.
After the presentation, food and drinks will be served from 5:30-7 p.m., where there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss this provocative topic.
Saturday Exposition Details
Saturday’s event will start at 11 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m.
“We want this to be a fun family event,” Van Leer says. “We’ll have additional speakers, plenty of opportunities to interact with city, county and Forest Service fire specialists, learn more about home hardening techniques, insurance issues in high fire areas and how to plan for a wildfire emergency.
To encourage participation in the event, there will be a bounce house for the kids, free pizza, free popcorn, and prizes for youngsters who complete enough activities.
Along with the interactive activities, guest speakers and educational booths, Van Leer sees learning more about the Fire Safe Council and what it is doing to meet the challenges of living with wildfire as an overarching goal of the exposition.
“We want to provide relevant information about fire for our local community,” he explains, “and in the process help everyone know how they can become a part of the solutions to the challenges fire poses to our wildland urban areas.”
You can learn more about what the Fire Safe Council and local fire agencies are doing to to create community-based holistic solutions to the challenge of wildfire through the Regional Wildfire Mitigation Program (RWMP).
It focuses on the understanding that protecting against wildfire is not just an agency responsibility but one that works best when the community and individual homeowners are active participants in it.
Expositions such as this provide a valuable way for the community to learn how to do that.
— Noozhawk outdoor writer Ray Ford can be reached at rford@noozhawk.com. Click here for his website, SBoutdoors.com. Follow him on Twitter: @riveray. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.