Our Partners
Ventura County Fire Protection District
CAL FIRE
City of Ojai
California Fire Safe Council
U.S. Forest Service
In collaboration with local governments, public safety agencies, emergency responders, transportation agencies and other key stakeholders, the OVFSC and a consulting team will conduct a Wildfire Evacuation/Transit System Vulnerability Assessment to help understand current capacities and vulnerabilities to safely and efficiently manage local residents in the event of wildfire emergencies that are likely to increase in scale, severity and frequency due to climate change. Specifically, the assessment will identify: (1) features and components of the transportation network that is vulnerable to wildfires and associated land/mudslides, (2) current capacities for total/partial evacuation (3) vulnerable groups and associated needs, (4) the needs and performance criteria for temporary refuge areas, evacuation centers and/or shelter-in-place facilities, (5) necessary improvements to the transportation networks and/or controls for emergency access and egress, (6) emergency communication strategies, (7) public engagement strategies and (8) action items for improving planning and preparedness projects.
Recommendations for improvement will aim to not only mitigate risks and/or increase resiliency to future wildfire threats but also have co-benefits to social equity, public safety, health and sustainability (i.e., green/nature-based solutions and/or bottom-up initiatives to increase community engagement and ownership). The results will be integrated into the Ojai Valley Community Wildfire Protection Plan. and can also be used by local jurisdictions when updating their General Plans, the Ventura County CWPP, and the Regional Transportation Plan, as well as, identify gaps in government services that can be fulfilled by Civil Society groups such as the OVFSC, CERT, Red Cross, Ventura County Resource Conservation District, etc.
Recent fires in the region and state have highlighted how important it is to manage people safely and efficiently in an emergency wildfire event, but also, the need to develop more holistic, integrated, bottom-up initiatives that work for the “whole” community. Transportation infrastructure plays a critical role in not only permitting the safe and timely egress of people to a place of relative safety, but also in allowing first responders access to undertake critical operations (e.g. firefighting, search and rescue, medical aid) in a severe wildfire event. Transportation infrastructure is also a critical component post-disaster for economic recovery, reconstruction, supply chain function, repopulation and social connectivity. However, when the transportation systems, local government agencies and citizens lack the capacities or resiliency to safely and swiftly evacuate or are vulnerable to being blocked and/or damaged due to a wildfire, the potential risk of major losses can be devastating. This is particularly important in the Ojai Valley where the local communities (~20,000 residents) are surrounded by steep mountains with limited egress and ingress via three major roads. Due to the steep terrain, natural dense vegetative fuels and local fire environment, these limited road lifelines can be easily blocked, damaged and/or congested due to a wildfire emergency, ultimately putting thousands of lives at risk. Developing a resilient and adaptive plan for managing evacuation and/or combined evacuation/shelter-in-place strategy is also a critical component for mitigating potential disasters.
Click here for a detailed Scope of Work.
Amelia is a consultant on the wildfire risk mitigation team working out of the Southern California region of Jensen Hughes. She is completing her PhD in Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where her research focuses on social vulnerability associated with wildfire risk and using spatial analysis to develop risk reduction strategies. She also has a BA from Colby College (Geology and Environmental Studies) and an MA from UCSB (Geography). She has experience with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), risk mitigation and resilience planning, demography, and spatial statistics, optimization, and modeling. Amelia has contributed consulting services to projects spanning various sectors, including utilities, non-profits, government, academia, and commercial. Currently, her focus is on wildfire risk mitigation planning across California and in other fire-prone regions in North America from the parcel scale up to the forest scale. Amelia is especially interested in using innovative datasets and methods to understand spatial and demographic variation in risk and using these findings to inform policy solutions.
Larry is a lifelong resident of Ventura County and currently resides in Moorpark. He is a Fire Prevention Officer and has been with VCFD since 1978. He works full time since September 1989 in the Fire Prevention Bureau and his current position is a Fire Prevention Supervisor (2000-current). Additionally, he has been assigned as the Fire Hazard Reduction Program (FHRP) Unit Manager since 2010. He was previously assigned in our New Construction / Land Use Planning Unit (Manager 2000-2010), (Senior Fire Inspector 2008-2010), (Fire Inspector 1992-2008). From 1989-1992, he was involved with the Fire Code Permits and Code Enforcement Unit as the Fire Inspector. From 1978-1989 he worked part time as a Reserve Firefighter. He is a member of:
Celine is Ventura County Fire Department’s Pre-Fire Specialist with over 20 years of wildland firefighting, fire and aviation management, pre-fire planning and wildland fire prevention experience. Her experience responding to wildland fires across the country on Fire Engines, Hot Shots and Helicopter modules, while working for the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service brings experience-based perspective to wildland pre-fire planning. Celine’s ability to work collaboratively led her to represent Region 5 (California) on working groups that re-wrote the National Helicopter Rappel Guide, helicopter rappeler syllabi and task book for the National Incident Qualification System. She contributed to developing the Type 1 Helicopter and Aviation Supervision Module National Programs. Celine’s goal is to increase Ventura County community’s wildfire resiliency in collaboration with community non-profits and Ventura County’s Local, State, and Federal cooperators, through landscape scale fire hazard reduction projects and wildfire mitigation education.
Darlene Rini, PE, is a Director in the Risk & Hazards Division of Jensen Hughes and is based in Ventura County. She has over 20 years of experience in a range of fire safety, structural fire resiliency and fire-related disaster risk management work with a focus on large scale developments, unique structures, infrastructure, and wildfire risk mitigation at city/county levels in the U.S. and abroad. She has a MSc in Structural Engineering from UC Berkeley, MSc in Fire Protection Engineering from University of Maryland, and an MSc in Disaster Risk Management & Climate Change Adaptation from Lund University in Sweden. She is a licensed fire engineer in the State of CA and an expert in performance-based structural fire engineering using analytical and qualitative methods to develop practical solutions for performance-based design, new and existing construction, onsite inspections, post-fire analyses, engineering peer reviews/judgements and research development. Ms. Rini’s diverse knowledge also expands into holistic wildfire and urban fire risk and social vulnerability assessments at the city/county scale to support decision making, policy, urban risk management and risk monitoring in developing and developed-country contexts.
She is currently working on several wildfire mitigation planning and risk assessment projects across California (e.g. NextEra, NASA SSFL,Tuolumne County Wildfire Evacuation Study, Butte County Community Evacuation Planning, Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety WMP Program Support, FEMA Marshall Fire Investigation, Ventura County Wildfire Collaborative CAL FIRE program). She’s on the Advisory Board of HUD’s Residential Resilience Wildfire Working Group, member of the SFPE WUI Working Groups, member of IAFSS’ Large Outdoor Fires and the Built Environment (LOF&BE) Working Group, member of the SoCAL FPO Wildland Urban Interface Committee, committee member for SFPE’s Very Tall Building Task Group and volunteer for Thousand Oaks DART & CERT programs, Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council and DRMCCA Newsletter Editor. She has certifications in ICS and Assessing Structure Ignition Potential.
Chris, a native of the Ojai Valley, is the executive director of the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council (OVFSC). The Ojai Valley was ground zero for the 2017 Thomas Fire and the impact of, and the hard lessons learned from, this uncontrollable wildland fire prompted the OVFSC to undertake the development of a long-term, community-focused, community-driven Wildfire Risk Mitigation Strategy for the Ojai Valley and surrounding communities. Chris joined the OVFSC in 2019 to assist the Council in the Risk Mitigation Strategy initiative.
Chris has a broad, diverse background of law, business, education, and environmental and community service. He has over 40 years of legal experience including the areas of strategic legal planning and consultation, business law (litigation, transactional, organizational development, and reorganization), nonprofit organizations, environmental, agriculture and natural resource management, international law, construction and real estate/land use. He has 25 years of direct litigation experience at both the federal and state level, with jury and non-jury trials, judicial and non-judicial arbitration, administrative proceedings, mediation, and appeals.
When Chris is not working on wildfire risk mitigation, he maintains a part-time practice of law, with an emphasis on providing general counsel to select non-profits and for-profit organizations, including those involved in regenerative agriculture.
Profession Kolden is an Associate Professor in the Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences Department in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho. Her research focuses on characterizing and understanding wildfires, invasive species, humans, and other large ecological disturbances across the landscape, using GIS and remote sensing tools. She regularly conducts outreach to the public, government agencies, communities, and non-profit groups on fire ecology and risk reduction. Crystal has worked on several CWPPs for local communities and fire departments conducting fire risk and mitigation analyses and developing and implementing protection plans, post-fire retrospective assessments, and Firewise Action Guidelines.
In addition, Crystal has provided GIS analysis for numerous fire and fuels projects, including hazard and risk assessments and wildland-urban interface projects.
Jonathan Hughes is a Senior Geospatial Consultant with 13 years of experience. He has an MS in Geographic Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Computer Science and Systems from the University of Washington. He has significant experience with Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Analysis, Data Management and Database Administration, and Software Development. He is a certified GIS Professional (GISP) and US Army combat veteran who has served in various technical and supervisory roles for the Department of Defense (DoD). He currently provides GIS support to the Power Services Group (PSG) on DoD projects and software development support for the Plant Data Management System (PDMS). He is a member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). He is also an active member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA)’s GISCorps, currently supporting their COVID-19 Testing Site Locations Project.
Mr. Metzger recently retired from USFS Intermountain Region as the region’s Fire Management Planning Specialist. With over 30 years of experience in the fire community. Tim has considerable experience working within all levels of government, and has served as subject matter expert for Land Management Planning, Spatial Fire Planning, and has developed numerous processes to spatially prioritize landscape conditions for LMP revisions, fuels treatments, NEPA/CEQA processes, Shared Stewardship mapping, and in particular to Southern California served as the project manager and lead analyst for the Strategic Fuel Break Analysis/Mapping/Prioritization for the Cleveland, Angeles, San Bernardino, and Los Padres National Forests. Tim will leverage this experience to lead the collaboration and analytical process with Corona Fire Department and other stakeholders to ensure that all requirements are met for immediate and long-term needs. His insights into planning and operational fire management requirements are unique and will be applied for the benefit of the City. Tim also has considerable experience working with Technosylva’s Wildfire Analyst software to derive many key datasets in support of Interagency Fire Management Planning in the Intermountain Region.
A 1981 honors graduate from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a BSc degree in Natural Resources Management. David has extensive experience working at the national level in wildland fire management. He served as a detailed Fire Chief on the Los Padres National Forest and the Fire Management Officer of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. David is a qualified Incident Commander, Operations Section Chief, and Fire Behavior Analyst and has more than 33 years of experience supporting wildland fire suppression operations, especially in Southern California. A skilled fire behavior modeler, David is proficient in using FSPro, a fire spread probability model, and FARSITE and FlamMap.
David has worked with communities and national forests on wildfire community protection planning for the past nine years. His work includes a fire behavior assessment for the City of Colfax, California CWPP, facilitating environmental compliance workshops for the Fire Safe Councils in California (including San Diego, Los Angeles, and Butte counties), analysis of fuels treatment effectiveness for the San Bernardino NF, and the Copper Fire Restoration Strategy for the Angeles NF. Most recently, David has worked with Jensen Hughes and Geo Elements LLC to facilitate stakeholder meetings, fire modeling and assisted in completing CWPPs for the City of Malibu, Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District, the City of Goleta, Santa Monica Mountain Communities, and the City of La Verne in California and four CWPPs in Sevier County, Utah.
Meagan is a fire/life safety consultant based in the Los Angeles office. Meagan received her B.S. in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering Technology at Eastern Kentucky University. She has a technical background in fire engineering from her academic studies and experience which she uses to inform holistic design strategies on a range of projects. She has a significant understanding of subjects ranging from life safety code application, Wildland Urban Interface fires, risk mitigation, and resilience strategy. Meagan has worked on projects spanning various sectors including healthcare, residential, education, arts & culture, retail, business, residential, and the Wildland Urban Interface.
Currently, her focus resides in Wildfire Mitigation planning across California. She has most recently contributed to consulting services for Tuolumne County to create an emergency planning and management strategy, developing a virtual handbook for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers for science-based resources for conducting parcel-level wildfire risk assessments, and developing comprehensive Wildfire Mitigation Plan Guidelines for California’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety.