Community Resilience Series Ep. 1: California Wildfire Policy (And So Much More) with Former CAL FIRE Chief Deputy Director Chris Anthony

Welcome to the first episode in a three-part series about community wildfire resilience, sponsored by Fire Aside. 

This episode explores a number of big, meaty topics you've likely been hearing about in the wildfire space, from wildfire insurance to categorical exclusions to NEPA to wildfire resilience policy in the era of urban conflagrations like those in LA this winter. Our fearless leader on this journey is former CAL FIRE Chief Deputy Director Chris Anthony, who has worked with some major players in the wildfire space since retiring in 2023. His consultation clients have included entities in the nonprofit, academic, philanthropic, agency and private industry (including Fire Aside) spaces, while also serving as a board member for the Earth Fire Alliance and California Fire Safe Council.

Chris has a deep understanding of wildfire resilience at both the landscape scale (think fuels management and big-picture restoration projects) as well as at the community scale (think home hardening, defensible space and how counties and cities engage with homeowners). This breadth of experience has made him instrumental in informing and advancing critical wildfire policy at the state level in California, while also getting involved in projects that leverage technology to help us better understand and mitigate risk to wildfire. 

After 30 years in CAL FIRE, his goals upon leaving the agency were simple: 

1. Bring fire back to fire-adapted ecosystems.

2. Build more understanding around what strategies and mitigative actions can meaningful reduce risk in communities.

3. Develop and support policies that help us meet these two goals.

4. Find innovators and technologies that can help scale up some of the critical actions we need to take to move the needle on fire resilience. 

We would like to extend a huge thank you to Fire Aside for sponsoring this series. Fire Aside is a home assessment platform that helps fire departments, conservation districts and other entities perform more thorough wildfire risk assessments, while also providing a platform for directly engaging homeowners in taking meaningful action to improve their resilience. Learn more at FireAside.com.