Our Story
The Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council (OVFSC) was founded in 2000 and over the last twenty years has successfully managed over 26 federally funded grants totaling over $1.3 Million. The OVFSC has also received state, local and private grants and community donations to fund its work. The projects funded by these grants and donation include:
- Extensive, and effective, vegetation management projects, focusing on high fire hazards.
- Created Countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) in 2010
- Elementary, Junior High and High School level wildfire safety education programs throughout the greater Ojai Valley Area.
- Wildfire safety programs for:
- Agriculture (farmers and ranchers)
- Homeowners
- Other landowners
- Landscape Professionals
- In-home presentations in cooperation with the US Forest Service and VC Fire Dept.
- Produced videos for wildfire preparedness which are available on our website. Other online wildfire safety resources include Home Wildfire Safety Survey, Emergency Supplies Checklist and Family Safety Plan.
- Bi-annual Wildfire Safety Fair.
The OVFSC has built effective partnerships with many agencies, organizations and other community partners.
The 2017 Thomas Fire, and the California wildfires since, showed that we needed a level of community capacity to be better prepared for, respond to and recovery from the threat of wildfire. This has resulted in a new focus for the OVFSC—to develop a comprehensive, community-based, community-driven wildfire risk mitigation strategy. This process was begun in 2019 with the preparation of the Road Map.
Click HERE to learn more about the Road Map and the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy.
What We Do
EDUCATION FOR WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS, PROTECTION AND SAFETY
The OVFSC has developed a wide variety of resources to help Ojai Valley citizens to prepare for wildfire and to protect themselves during a wildfire event. These resources include two online forms – a Family Safety Plan, downloadable form, and a Home Wildfire Safety Survey that helps homeowners to assess the safety of their home and property in the event of a wildfire. Other resources are downloadable and useful links are provided.
As the threat of catastrophic wildfires is increasing, the OVFSC is preparing a series of podcasts and presentations to further educate and better prepare the Ojai Valley for this threat.
COMPREHENSIVE WILDFIRE RISK MITIGATION STRATEGY
The 2017 Thomas Fire demonstrated that the Ojai Valley community was inadequately prepared for such a fast-moving, erratic wind-driven wildfire. While wildfire is inevitable and necessary, the wildfires of 2017-2020 represent an increased risk from wildfires. The nature of the Thomas Fire led to the public safety agencies being quickly overwhelmed and hampered by single points of failure in critical systems. After the Thomas Fire, the OVFSC was approached by key stakeholders, including the County of Ventura, Ventura Fire Protection District, City of Ojai and its Advisory Board, to lead the preparation and implementation of a comprehensive wildfire safety strategy for the Ojai Valley to create the community-level response capacity needed for such catastrophic fires.
The OVFSC accepted the challenge and initiated the process to develop and implement a sustainable, holistic, community-base Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy for the Ojai Valley area. The first step was to prepare a Road Map for development, implementation and funding of this important initiative.
CREATE RESILIENT FIRE-ADAPTED COMMUNITIES
An overarching goal of the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy is to develop a culture of wildfire safety and resiliency in the Ojai Valley; to become a truly fire-adapted community in a fire-dependent ecosystem. A “fire-adapted community” can be defined as:
A knowledgeable and engaged community in which the awareness and actions of residents regarding infrastructure, buildings, landscaping, and surrounding ecosystem lessens the need of extensive protection actions and enables the community to safely accept fire as part of the surrounding landscape.
The National Wildfire Coordinating Group, U.S. Forest Service
A truly fire-adapted community is overall a more sustainable and resilient community. Many of the capacities being developed for the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy also increase the sustainability and resiliency of the Ojai Valley community as a whole. The OVFSC has joined with other agencies and organizations to collaborate and coordinate the development of these resilience strategies.
Who We Are
Staff
CHRISTOPHER DANCH, J.D. - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Christopher Danch serves as Executive Director of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council, a position he has held since January 2019. With over 40 years of legal experience and a distinguished background in environmental law and nonprofit management, Chris brings a unique combination of legal expertise and hands-on conservation experience to wildfire safety and community resilience.
A graduate of California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (B.S. Business Administration, with honors, 1977) and California Western School of Law (J.D., 1980), Chris is admitted to the State Bar of California and the U.S. District Courts for the Central, Southern & Eastern Districts of California. His legal practice encompasses business formation, environmental law, construction law, and extensive nonprofit organization experience. Since joining the Fire Safe Council, Chris has successfully managed over 15 state and federally funded grants totaling over $1.5 million with approximately $580,000 in matching contributions. He is currently managing $2.05 Million in projects. His responsibilities include identifying grant opportunities, writing applications, project management, and overseeing partnerships with key organizations including Ventura County Fire Protection District, USFS Los Padres National Forest, and the Ventura County Resource Conservation District. Chris has co-founded and directed four nonprofits dedicated to youth development, environmental education, and natural resource conservation, including Concerned Resource & Environmental Workers (The C.R.E.W.), Sunbow Ecology Center, and the Los Padres Forest Association. He conceived and initiated the Condor Trail Project in 1998—a 426-mile trail through Los Padres National Forest that was designated as a White House Community Millennium Trail in 2001 and is now pending congressional designation as a National Scenic Trail.
His environmental and community service includes serving as Board Chairman of the Ventura County Chapter of the American Red Cross for three years, where he helped transform the organization from a $379,000 annual budget to $1.2 million and was recognized as one of the top chapters in the nation. In 2003, he received both the National Service Award and the prestigious Chief’s Volunteers Program National Award from the USDA Forest Service Chief. Chris also has over a decade of experience with clean energy technologies, including thermal conversion and biomass-to-energy systems, making him uniquely qualified to address the intersection of fire safety, land management, and sustainable community development.
SUDEEP MOTUPALLI RAO, PHD - DIRECTOR OF EMERGENT SYSTEMS
Sudeep is working at a systems-level approach to help the Ojai Valley bioregion in California, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies such as uncontrollable wildfires as the Director of Emergent Systems at The Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council (FireSafeOjai.org).
His work spans a broad spectrum of sectors, fields, frameworks and disciplines such as steel-making efficiency improvements, R&D to prevent radioactive contamination of rivers from legacy labs, ambient-pressure aerogels, biomimetic conservation of limestone monuments, non-contact scatterometry for semiconductor manufacturing, health policy development from deeply-engaging doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and medical residents from UCSF with neighboring community leaders and bioremediation of fugitive macroscopic synthetic plastic micropollutants. He is the co-founder of technical innovation & design spaces, SlowTechLabs.Net and InnovationSpace.in. He began learning yoga and meditation from his father. Sudeep appreciates Ojai’s life with its evolving aesthetic of natural wild beauty, deep peace, and the harmonization at play of national forest wilderness with urban living, legacy industries, agriculture, farming, education, sports and a long life for us all.
MATAI BLACKLOCK - TECHNOLOGIST & BIOREGIONAL COMMUNITY BUILDER
Matai Blacklock is a seasoned technologist and community builder, with experience leading grassroots, corporate, and government projects. After studying Industrial Engineering & Sustainability Studies at RPI in Troy, NY, he worked his way to a Senior Consultant role with the Chief Strategy Office of Deloitte, playing key management roles for Fortune-100 technology and non-profit pro-bono projects, developing a shared services governance model for four US Telecom companies, supporting government lobbying around AI ethics, and leading process optimization efforts for a variety of Wall St. organizations. He is conversationally fluent in French, German and Spanish, and has experience working as a concrete technician, civil engineer’s assistant, natural builder, renewable energy salesman, content creator, events producer, and community lead for decentralized coliving and regenerative community projects. Matai currently leads community building efforts for a local farm in Upper Ojai, and is supporting the founding of a local resource sharing co-operative, housing co-operative, and bioregional learning centers.
KALLI ANN O'CONNOR - ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Kalli Ann O’Connor serves as Assistant Director at the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council. Kalli’s work centers on building community resilience within the bioregion of the Ventura River Watershed, utilizing a systems approach that addresses the interconnected nature of environmental, social, and economic challenges. She plays a key role in the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council’s development of two bioregional learning centers — community resilience hubs designed to strengthen the Valley’s adaptive capacity through various strategies such as education, collaboration, and integrated land management practices.
Her diverse skill set encompasses strategic planning, project and grant management, fundraising, event planning, and community outreach and education. Her holistic approach bridges the gap between fire mitigation methods and regenerative land stewardship, fostering resilience that benefits both human communities and natural ecosystems. She is a certified Home Hardening and Defensible Space Assessor through CAL FIRE and the National Fire Protection Association, as well as a certified Firefighter Type 2, combining technical credentials with hands-on field experience in fire safety and mitigation. Kalli was educated at The Thacher School and studied Psychology at the University of Michigan. Kalli then pursued training in Holistic Management with the Savory Institute, where she gained knowledge in business operations for ranching and prescriptive grazing. Kalli integrates ecologically-minded fuel management strategies with agricultural systems, understanding the connections between herbivory, food and fiber production, and landscape-scale fire mitigation.
MOLLY BROLIN - DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Molly Brolin is the Director of Community Outreach at the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council, where she steers engagement efforts to strengthen wildfire preparedness across the community. A multidisciplinary creative entrepreneur with two decades of experience, she blends backgrounds in event and film production, artist management, and nonprofit leadership to deliver collaborative, service-driven strategies.
Her work has also included large-scale fundraising campaigns and humanitarian initiatives, such as helping to build a world-class skatepark on Navajo Nation reservation land and assisting coordination of mutual aid efforts that delivered over $1 million in COVID-19 relief to the Four Corners region. Guided by the principle of “heart-work over hard-work, Molly is passionate about building community resilience through collaboration, bringing a creative, heart-centered approach to every project she leads.
KIARA DEWITT - INTERN
Kiara DeWitt, a current Communications major at Columbia College Chicago, has spent a considerable amount of time visiting loved ones in Ojai, allowing her to feel a deep appreciation for the unique community and nature within the valley. This past summer, she had the opportunity to intern with the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council and tie her academic background to a beloved community. Through this role, she has gained valuable experience in community outreach and wildfire prevention. She looks forward to continuing to serve the Ojai community as she continues her internship into this fall semester.
Board of Directors
WILLIAM D. CASTAGNA - BOARD CHAIRMAN
Will Castagna has lived in Ojai since 1998 and was one of the original founders of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council in 2000. He has served the council continuously for over 25 years, as a Board Member, Executive Director and Grants Manager, and he currently serves as the Board’s Chairman. Professionally, he is a start-up consultant, helping to grow businesses from ideas through to acquisition. He has also helped create and grow several local non-profit organizations and successfully acquired over $1M in grant funding for the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council. Programs implemented include wildfire safety education for students, homeowners, landscapers, and farmers and ranchers; the Last Stand Fuel Break project to the north of the valley; the Ojai Valley Wildfire Safety Fair; and house-out defensible space programs in high fire-danger neighborhoods.
RANDY COGGAN, J.D. - FIRE CHIEF (RETIRED) FOR VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT
Randy Coggan is a retired fire service veteran having served for twenty-five years, coming up through the ranks, and has served as a fire chief for several departments including being a former Fire Chief for Ventura County and later as Fire Chief for the City of Oxnard. As a Fire Chief, Randy oversaw budgets ranging from $10 Million to over $45 Million, with staff ranging from 45 to over 450 personnel. During this period Randy served on numerous committees for both the International Association of Firefighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and the National Fire Protection Association. He also authored the chapter on “Insurance Grading of Fire Departments” in the Fifth Edition of The Fire Chiefs Handbook. After retiring from the fire service, he began a second career in Business Resiliency & Crisis Management working for several major corporations for another ten years before finally retiring in 2023. He and his wife Virginia returned to California in October 2024 settling in the Ojai Valley. He has a Juris Doctorate and is a member of the Washington State Bar Association. He is a Commissioner on the City of Ojai Public Safety Commission and is a member of the Ventura County Fire Department (VCFD) Historical Society who have begun planning the celebration of the100th Anniversary of VCFD that will occur in 2028. When asked what he loves, besides his family, he said serving on the Board of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council and being active in the Ojai Valley community.
MOLLY BROLIN - STAFF, OJAI VALLEY FIRE SAFE COUNCIL
As well as serving on the Board, Molly Brolin is also the Director of Community Outreach of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council. She brings both professional expertise and personal insight to her role, with a strong interest in fostering a localized, fire-adapted community. Molly is particularly focused on addressing a critical need and an opportunity in this era of escalating fire seasons, to find solutions to a growing mental health crisis by supporting first responders and their families holistically, as well as the entire community affected by wildfire and the existential threat thereof. She is committed to developing a mental health program and healing center as part of the Ojai Valley Community Resilience Centers project currently underway with OVFSC.
Her philosophy of wildfire preparedness acknowledges the Ventura Watershed as unceded Chumash territory. She emphasizes the importance of drawing from the Chumash people’s 15,000 years of fire-adapted land stewardship, along with an approach to living in relationship with fire as an integrated part of life. Molly advocates for wildfire resilience that is both practical and deeply rooted in place, people, and purpose.
WAYNE MAYNARD - FIRE CAPTAIN (RETIRED) VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT
Wayne Maynard moved to Ojai while in the 5th grade and has resided in Oak View and Ojai for over 50 years. A local graduate from Nordhoff, he obtained an AA Degree at Ventura College, a Fire Science Certificate at Oxnard College and a Continuing Education Certificate at UCLA in Fire Protection Engineering. As an Eagle Scout he learned the value and enjoyment of public service which led to joining the Ojai Fire Station Reserve Firefighter Program in 1974. At 19 years of age he was hired as a full-time firefighter with Ventura County Fire Department in 1975. Promoted to Fire Captain in 1984 he worked at various station assignments in the Ojai and Thousand Oaks areas. He attained sufficient training and experience in wildland firefighting to become a Planning Section Chief, part of the command staff during wildland fire incidents and also served in that capacity on a CalFire (CDF) state incident command team. Much of his career was spent working in the Fire Prevention Division of the Fire Department where he became recognized as a national expert in building and fire codes. He served as chairman to the International Code Council Performance Fire Code Drafting Committee which published the first performance-based fire code in the county. He served on several code development committees with the International Fire Code Institute, the California Building Standards Commission, the California State Fire Marshal office, and the California Fire Chiefs Association. Although retired in 2011 as a full time firefighter, Wayne continues to do occasional part time work for the Fire Department to assist the Fire Marshal in the development and management of various Fire Prevention Programs. He enjoys hiking and camping and spends some time away from home visiting his grandchildren and traveling to National Parks around the county. Wayne joined the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council as a board member in 2021.
NEIL LOKUGE - AMERICAN RED CROSS, DISASTER RELIEF AND RESPONSE
Neil Lokuge brings more than 15 years of leadership in logistics, emergency preparedness, and operational strategy to the Ojai Fire Safe Council. As Manager of Business Operations at the American Red Cross National Training Services, Neil leads a national team that supports over $130 million in annual contracts, with a focus on efficiency, scalability, and client service. He oversees strategic implementation for high-priority accounts, including the organization’s largest military training programs, and has played a key role in modernizing operations.
His previous roles in logistics and disaster service delivery have given him a hands-on understanding of emergency readiness. Neil also served as a Red Cross Disaster Relief Action Team volunteer, having assisted in both national and local disasters, reinforcing his commitment to local resilience and crisis response. Neil holds a master’s degree in International Management and Policy from UC San Diego, along with certificates in Intergroup Relations (Loyola Marymount University) and Global Logistics (California State University, Long Beach). He is a long-time member of the World Affairs Council of Los Angeles and brings a global perspective to local fire safety efforts in the Ojai Valley.
We need your help
Support the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council. Become a member, and help us achieve our mission of promoting wildfire safety across the County through education and action.
Our Mission is to Promote Wildfire Safety
in the Ojai Valley through Education and Action.
Our Partners
Ventura County Fire Protection District
CAL FIRE
City of Ojai
California Fire Safe Council
U.S. Forest Service
