We have created a collaborative to support regional wildfire and forestry workforce development needs. Santa Clara FireSafe Council is the lead applicant for a potential CAL FIRE Workforce Development Grant application. Core partners include Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, San Jose Water, San Jose Conservation Corps and Charter School, Sequoia Ecological Consulting and SIERRA Environmental Consulting Academy, with many other collaborators in the mix. By the time you read this, we will be close to hitting Send on the application. Stay tuned!

CAL FIRE has recently introduced their Wildfire Resilience Index. The (WRI) is a free, open-access tool that measures wildfire resilience across people and ecosystems for any location in the American & Canadian West at 90-meter resolution. It is designed to help communities understand their resilience levels and identify areas that need improvement. The WRI splits resilience into two components: Resistance (the ability to withstand fire impacts) and Recovery (the ability to regain function afterward). This dual focus allows for targeted interventions to enhance overall resilience. The index covers eight socio-ecological domains: Infrastructure, Communities, Livelihoods, Sense of Place, Species, Habitats, Water, and Air. It is a valuable resource for land managers, county planners, federal agencies, and other stakeholders to assess and improve wildfire resilience. Check it out here. 

We hit send on our Forest Health Grant concept proposal. Now we wait to learn if we are invited to the dance to submit a full application. If so, the runway will be short. I want to thank all of our partners—standing ovation to Dudek, Auten Resources Consulting, San Jose Water, Midpeninsula Open Space District, Bodfish Ranch, Santa Clara County Parks and the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency. Proud of each of you and the quality of what we developed. 

OK, enough from me this month. Please take time to review our research and presentations. These are materials I have read and viewed that provide deeper insight into the science and world of wildfire. Hopefully they interest you, too. More from the SCCFSC team. Thanks for reading.

Yours truly,



Seth Schalet

CEO, Santa Clara County FireSafe Council

New Regional Planning Resource for Santa Clara County

Exciting news for our region! A new planning document is now available for the west side of Santa Clara County. The Santa Cruz Mountains Regional Priority Plan (SCMRPP) is part of a growing network of regional planning tools designed to support forest health and wildfire preparedness across the area.

To explore the plan and learn more, visit the RPP website at: https://scmsn-rpp-sanmateorcd.hub.arcgis.com/

This is just the beginning — stay tuned as this important work continues to expand throughout the region. As the Santa Clara County Wildfire Coordinator, the FireSafe Council is committed to connecting and supporting regional efforts like this one, ensuring that collaboration and coordination extend beyond county lines.

The South Bay PBA is now accepting applications for the in-person S-130 Field Exercise and Work Capacity Test, scheduled for June 27, 2026. This course will complete your FFT2 training certification. 

Apply: FFT2 Registration Form

Please make sure all three required online trainings are completed before registering. The three prerequisite courses are available on the South Bay PBA website and must be finished by May 31, 2026 (registration deadline). Learn More

New Technical Course Opportunity: 

CA-219, Wildland Firefighting - Firing Operations (June 15–19, 2026)

• Classroom location is TBD but will be in the vicinity of San Jose, CA.
• Live fire evolutions will be held at Coyote Creek Parkways in Morgan Hill, CA.

Join us this Tuesday, May 19th at 1:30pm via Zoom to listen as Jackson Yip, Cofounder of Paladin Industries, will present and demo Paladin’s Initial Attack (IA) platform. IA includes evaluating the fire, patrolling, monitoring, determining what additional resources are needed and implementing suppression actions to stop the fire and protect both firefighters and public safety.

June: Jay Balagna, MPH, MPhil, RAND School of Public Policy, is the lead author of Accelerating Technological Innovation Across the U.S. Wildfire Management System and will present on these findings.

July: Hussam Mahmoud will make a repeat appearance at our monthly Board meeting series. Since his first appearance three years ago, he picked up a fancy new title, Craig E. Philip Endowed Chair of Engineering, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Director, Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy, and Climate. Hussam will present on the recently released study he chaired, Wildfire Modelling and Artificial Intelligence.

September: What happens if EV charging stations burn in a wildfire, or low charged EV batteries die and start clogging the roads because they run out of juice? Join us for this insightful presentation to review an emerging issue and study all Emergency Managers, City Planners--and EV owners should read: The green gridlock: Projecting the unintended wildfire evacuation risks of EV adoption study 

Khondhaker Al Momin, E.I.T is a Ph.D. Candidate in Transportation Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, and the lead author of a recent study examining the unintended wildfire evacuation risks associated with increasing electric vehicle adoption, integrating infrastructure dependency, evacuation modeling, and system-level risk analysis.