With the benefit of mild summer weather and a wet ’22/’23 winter, Napa County avoided large wildfires this season. Summers like these are needed for the community to press our advantage and continue to stay ahead of the inevitable wildfire risks to our neighborhoods. Napa Firewise stayed busy throughout 2023: advancing the work of wildfire resilience in the County. This is complicated, tedious, and deliberate work that requires us to think comprehensively and look down range to plan for all the maintenance that will be required to protect our progress.
Napa Firewise made significant advances completing roadside fuel reduction work along critical evacuation routes as well as perimeter fuel breaks around vulnerable neighborhoods and communities. In addition to these highly visible projects, Napa Firewise also did valuable work improving important dozer containment lines around the County, helping homeowners with defensible space, and providing support for local Fire Safe Councils, who in turn work to build wildfire resilience within local communities throughout Napa County.
All of Napa Firewise’s work was done with important grant dollars from CAL FIRE, the California Fire Safe Council, Napa County, Senator Dodd, Napa Valley Vintners, Napa Valley Community Foundation, and PG&E. The expensive work of building wildfire resilience cannot be done without the financial resources from our funders. Ultimately, decreasing the risk of wildfire will depend on ongoing and substantial investments by private landowners. Napa Firewise is expanding our capacity to support private landowners to prioritize resilience investments and manage the implementation of comprehensive wildfire mitigation strategies. It is the spirit of self-reliance that is the most important element of achieving resilience.
Napa Firewise is no longer a volunteer-run organization. To be an engine for securing grant dollars, to be a sustained driver of fuel mitigation and structure hardening programs, Napa Firewise relies on unrestricted funds to pay for staff and build capacity to deliver solutions towards this tremendous challenge. We need your pledged support. Please consider a donation of any amount that you can contribute to support our important work.