It will happen here again: Reflecting on the LA fires and what it means for Bay Area fire prevention

The recent LA fires are a wakeup call to many about the elevated wildfire risk Californians face. The question is not whether another major wildfire will strike the San Francisco Bay Area in the future, but when. Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense, and wildfire experts concur we should not be surprised nor caught off guard by their occurrence.

This webinar, hosted by the Bill Lane Center for the American West, will be a panel discussion about what the recent fires in LA mean for Bay Area fire prevention and response. The panelists bring decades of experience and reflections on what the Bay Area can do about the inevitability of wildfires in the coming years.

Panelists: 

David Shew, Fire Administrator, Napa County

David Shew is Napa County’s first Fire Administrator, a role he assumed on October 30, 2023. With 32 years of experience in fire service, Shew brings a wealth of knowledge from his distinguished career with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). He spent 15 years with the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit (LNU), serving in key positions such as Napa County Fire Marshal, Battalion Chief, Special Operations Chief, and Staff Chief for the Division of Planning and Risk Analysis at the Office of the State Fire Marshal.

Before retiring in 2018, Shew was instrumental in overseeing statewide fire prevention programs and developing best practices for wildfire mitigation. He began his career as a firefighter and later rose through the ranks to hold leadership positions within CAL FIRE’s Santa Clara and Nevada-Yuba-Placer Units. Shew also has a background in architecture and emergency medical services, having worked as an EMT and ambulance driver in Mendocino County.

Throughout his career, Shew received numerous accolades, including the CAL FIRE Director’s Outstanding Achievement Award and a Medal of Valor from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. As Fire Administrator, he will oversee strategic planning, coordination, and the delivery of $37.5 million in federal wildfire resiliency grants, while working closely with local Fire Safe Councils and the Napa County Firewise Foundation.

Shew is deeply committed to improving wildfire prevention efforts and community resilience. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, and is actively involved with the California Fire Safe Council and the National Fire Protection Association.

Mark Brown, CEO, Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority

Mark started his career as a volunteer firefighter in 1986 in Sonoma County. He was hired by the Marin County Fire Department as a Firefighter/Paramedic in 1991 and retired as the Deputy Fire Chief. After serving for nearly 30 years with the Marin County Fire Department, Mark retired in order to assume the position as Executive Officer for the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority. Mark served on a CAL FIRE Incident Management Team for 15 years as a Type I Operations Section Chief and was qualified as a Type II Incident Commander. Chief Brown was a founding member of the North Bay Incident Management Team, a Type III All-Hazards IMT in the San Francisco Bay Area and was the Program Manager and one of the Incident Commanders. His deployments include floods, earthquakes, public health emergencies, hurricanes, oil spills, mud slides, civil unrest, wildland fires and planned events. Mark has a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Studies – Organizational Leadership. He is married and has three adult children.

Michael Wara, Director of Climate Energy and Policy Program, Stanford University

Michael Wara is a lawyer and scholar focused on climate and energy policy. Wara is a Senior Research Scholar at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program. The Program provides fact based, bipartisan, technical and legal assistance to policy makers engaged in the development of novel climate and energy law and regulation. Wara also facilitates the connection of Stanford faculty with cutting edge policy debates on climate and energy, leveraging Stanford’s energy and climate expertise to craft real world solutions to meet these challenges.

Wara’s legal and policy scholarship focuses on carbon pricing, energy innovation, and regulated industries. He collaborates with economists, engineers, and scientists in research on the design and evaluation of technical and regulatory solutions to climate and energy challenges. He is also an expert on international environmental law with a particular focus on the ozone and climate treaty regimes.

Prior to joining the Woods Institute, Wara was an Associate Professor at Stanford Law School and an Associate in Holland & Knight’s Government Practice. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Panel Moderator:

Derek Fong Lecturer and Senior Research Engineer, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

Derek Fong's early career centered on research in environmental and geophysical fluid dynamics, aiming to understand the fundamental transport processes in rivers, estuaries, and coastal oceans. He employs a variety of methods to study these fluid processes, including laboratory experiments, field studies, and numerical modeling. His research projects have investigated lateral dispersion in stratified coastal flows, the fate and transport of freshwater in river plumes, advanced hydrodynamic measurement techniques, coherent structures in nearshore flows, biophysical interactions in stratified lakes, and the transport of contaminated sediments.

In recent years, Derek's interests have broadened to include innovative solutions to pressing planetary issues such as climate change and wildfires. He co-founded the Big Earth Hackathon series and directed four Wildland Fire Challenge events, leading to numerous cutting-edge solutions in wildfire prediction, community wildfire response, and social equity. Derek is actively engaged at the intersection of wildfire science, human behavior, and public policy.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Derek earned a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studying the dynamics of freshwater plumes. He has also served as a senior lecturer at the University of Washington, Friday Harbor Laboratories in Friday Harbor, Washington.