Good fire in Southern California: restoring landscapes and habitat, managing fuel load, and creating wildfire resilience
September 30th, 2024, 1:00 – 3:35pm
Link to webinar recording
This webinar was an opportunity for participants to increase their understanding of how beneficial fire can be used as an ecological restoration and land management practice that co-benefits fuel load management and enhances wildfire resiliency in Southern California.
Monica Matthews, Board Secretary for the Santa Barbara County Range Improvement Association, briefly discussed the history of fire as a land management tool, before delving into its value today to enhance resilience in our ecosystems. Marlene' Dusek, Payómkawichum, Kumeyaay & Kupa Cultural Practitioner and Traditional Land Manager, covered the use of cultural fire and traditional management practices by tribes in so-called California. Jeremy Zagarella, Natural Resources Director at Trihydro, discussed the lessons learned when a wildfire burned a shrubland area near a planned prescribed burn and the impact that post wildfire surveys had on altering some aspects of the prescribed burn. Sophie McLean, Native Plant Specialist and Nursery Manager at the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, explored the intersection of prescribed fire research and land management through a case study in Ventura County. Matthew Shapero, Conservation Grazing Program Manager at Mid-Pen Regional Open Space District, discussed how grazing can be used to attenuate the impacts of wildfire, to complement prescribed fire as a practice, and how prescribed fire is used to improve grazing lands.
Links to Additional Resources
The Women They Are Carrying Fire - Pa'asik`tavaansas Kuniktáamvunatih (2023)
| Time | Item |
|---|---|
| 1:00pm | Webinar begins |
|
Monica Matthews: Why Do We Need Beneficial Fire? |
|
|
Marlene' Dusek: Kút Yumáykawish, Cultural Fire |
|
| Woody Bouska: Prescribed Burn Planning Process | |
| Jeremy Zagarella: Shrubland Burning Perspectives | |
| Q&A | |
| 2:40pm | Break |
| Sophie McLean: Rx Burning as a Tool for Habitat Restoration in Ventura County | |
| Matthew Shapero: The Interplay of Grazing and Fire: how two rangeland management tools affect each other | |
| Q&A | |
| 3:35pm | Webinar ends |
Link to presentation abstracts
Trainers:
Monica Matthews, Board Secretary for for the Santa Barbara County Range Improvement Association
Monica Matthews is an ecologist, community organizer, fire practitioner and conservation and restoration planner currently working at the Santa Barbara Fire Safe Council in the world of wildfire resilience. She is passionate about working with community and the land to maximize ecological and community resilience for all. She enjoys connecting with friends and community over art, music, food and a love for the lands that raised us.
Marlene' Dusek, Payómkawichum, Kumeyaay & Kupa Cultural Practitioner and Traditional Land Manager
Marlene’ is a Payómkawichum, Kúupangawish, Iipai-Kumeyaay, Czech Indigenous queer woman, cultural practitioner, traditional land manager, weaver, fire keeper, educator, artist/poet/photographer, and community member who has always been in a relationship with the land since she was a child and stewarded in various ways taught by her elders and ancestors.
Marlene is dedicated to protecting relatives and Mother Earth from the harms of the colonial world. She has been working with Indigenous communities/elders/youth, practicing culture, utilizing fire as medicine, and providing education, traditional foods, and healing medicines for many years. Her work focuses on redistributing power to Indigenous communities, upholding their knowledge and food systems, and reclaiming management practices and the right to her tribal people's ancestral lands. Her work is also focused on creating spaces for and the reclamation of Indigenous Trans, Queer, and Women being land stewards. She believes reclaiming and sustaining these practices are critical to our community's overall health and the health of the land and all for planning for a good future for the next generations.
She has been involved in much work around kút(fire) throughout the state both culturally and through the settler colonial model/training of NWCG qualifications, Cultural READ, and much more.
Woody Bouska, Owner and CEO, SURE-FIRE TRAINING INC.
Woody Bouska is the owner and CEO of SURE-FIRE Training Inc. Woody has over 40 years of experience in the wildland fire service and has extensive experience working with various agencies and organizations designing, and conducting fuels mitigation and prescribed fire projects. Woody is a registered California State Fire Training Burn Boss Instructor and Certified California State Prescribed Burn Boss. He provides a variety of consulting and training services for fire departments, land management agencies and other government and corporate organizations throughout the State. He received his formal education from UC Davis in Wildlife Biology.
Jeremy Zagarella, Natural Resources Director, Trihydro
Jeremy Zagarella (RPF #3229) grew up in Fallbrook, California in San Diego County. He holds degrees from CSU San Marcos, UCLA, and University of Idaho. In addition to being a Registered Professional Forester, he is a NWCG qualified Fire Effects Monitor, Firefighter, Resource Advisor; a SFM California Burn Boss Trainee, and a Certified Fuels Manager though AFE. He is one of two current chairs for the California Fire Science Consortium statewide advisory board, and he has been fortunate to sit on several natural resource related working groups and taskforces.
Before joining Trihydro in 2024, Jeremy spent 20 years working for San Diego County Tribes. He has worked extensively in Federal and State systems, and he has a comprehensive understanding of tribal affairs. He has written and secured millions of dollars in federal and state grants over his career. He planned, funded, and implemented a wide variety of traditional forestry and resource management projects including some of the following: WUI fuels reduction, riparian forest restoration, forest thinning, wildland fuels reduction, reforestation, post-fire surveys, utility fire reduction, flora and fauna surveys, and GIS planning. Jeremy has primarily worked in Southern California Montane Forest, Chapparal, and Oak Woodland systems throughout his career.
Jeremy has worked with diverse groups of stakeholders, and he has been fortunate to collaborate on many of his projects with critical partners whom he would like to thank which include, but are not limited to: USFS, CALFIRE, NRCS, local RCDs, CARCD, Fire Safe Councils, SDGE, Univ. of California, SANDAG, BIA, UCANR, SDMMP, private consultants, and others.
Sophie McLean, Native Plant Specialist and Nursery Manager, Ojai Valley Land Conservancy
Sophie McLean is the Native Plant Specialist and Nursery Manager at the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy (OVLC). In her role, Sophie monitors plant populations across OVLC’s 2,600 acres of open space and supports habitat restoration projects across 100+ acres through monitoring, growing native plants, and writing restoration plans. Sophie received a bachelor’s degree in Plant Biology from Montana State University, and returned to her home of Southern California to take this knowledge into the field. Now a California Certified Botanist, her restoration experience is rooted in oak woodland, sage scrub, chaparral, and riparian habitats of the Ventura River Watershed. Attempting to create a deeper relationship with both the health of the land and community, Sophie’s interest led to prescribed fire and its relation to Ojai’s plant communities. Sophie has helped organize a prescribed burn research project at OVLC’s Ventura River Steelhead Preserve, to utilize prescribed fire to control invasive species and promote fire adapted native species.
Matthew Shapero, Conservation Grazing Program Manager, Mid-Pen Regional Open Space District
Matthew Shapero joined the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Fall 2023 as the Conservation Grazing Program Manager. In that role, he helps to manage roughly 14,000 acres of grazing lands on the San Mateo County coast. Prior to joining Midpen, Matthew worked for six years in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties as the Livestock & Range advisor with UC Cooperative Extension.
