Projects

Structural Hardening

The overall goal of this project is to increase community capacity for structural hardening to reduce vulnerabilities of residential losses to wildland/WUI fire threats at the individual home and neighborhood levels.

With funding from CAL FIRE, OVFSC, as part of the Ventura County Wildfire Collaborative, will participate in the a comprehensive and innovative 2-year program (“Home Hardening A to Z”) to reduce the risk of loss of homes and property.  This program is an all-inclusive program of education, home hardening workshops, a standardized HIZ data management strategy (i.e., collection, analytics, monitoring and visualization), and recommendations for safety improvements and retrofits.   This project will be managed by Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council (VRFSC).  VRFSC will hire and train three full-time Wildfire Safety Liaisons, one of which will cover the Santa Clara and Ventura Rivers watersheds, including the Ojai Valley.  The key tasks of the Liaisons will be:

  • Recruit participants into home-hardening workshops
  • Facilitate and conduct workshops
  • Coordinate and conduct Home Hardening Assessments and follow-up improvements

The project team will also develop and implement a standard HIZ (Home Ignition Zone) data management strategy (i.e., collection, analytics, monitoring and tracking systems).  In addition to the workshops, project staff and/or trained volunteers will complete a minimum of 400 HIZ Assessments during the two-year grant term.   Partnerships will be explored with multiple nonprofits, including Concerned Resource & Environmental Workers (C.R.E.W.), to become trained in the top hardening improvements..

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