The following are our accomplishments in 2024, with the help of many partners and community residents. Thanks to all of you Oak Park residents who are making our community safer.
Firewise
- The first Firewise communities signed up in Oak Park include Canyon Cove, Country Glen, Country Meadows II, Morrison/Sutton, Regency/Chambord. Congratulations to all of these communities for taking the first step to becoming more fire-resilient.
- Certificates for Insurance – We have updated our website to allow homeowners to print their Firewise Certificate for presentation to their insurance companies for potential discounts. If you have the California Fair Plan, you will receive a 10% discount off your insurance premiums for being a designated Firewise USA community.
- We have developed a Firewise Investment progress report that is sent out monthly. Homeowners can measure their progress against their Firewise goals.
- All Oak Park Firewise recognized communities received grants ranging from $1,000 to $1,750 to improve their community’s fire resiliency. These communities are qualified to receive additional Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council grants and can also apply for grants from other sources.
Assessments
- We formed a relationship with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council this year, in which they will provide our Wildfire assessments.
- We recently received a donation that will be used to pay for Wildfire Assessments in Oak Park. This will accelerate the turnaround on the assessments in order to help residents move forward with their home hardening and defensible space projects.
- We are looking for part-time assessors. Training and compensation will be provided. Contact [email protected] for details.
Marketing
- On October 5, we hosted, along with the Ventura County Supervisor and the Ventura County Fire Department, an open house at Oak Park’s Fire Station 36. This was a family event similar to last year’s successful event, which approximately 350 residents attended. Some of the highlights were:
– Fire trucks for kids to sit in and fire hats to wear
– Goats (many of you have seen them on local hillsides mitigating brush). Yes, the kids were able to pet them.
– Ice Cream Truck
– Several agencies and organizations were in attendance for those who wanted to discuss improved fire resiliency, insurance benefits, etc. - We sent out 12 monthly newsletters to our subscriber base. We will be evaluating the frequency of these newsletters for 2025.
- We held a marketing planning session for 2025.
- More than 920 residents have signed up for our newsletter.
- We started our Social Media outreach program, and now are posting 2-3 times per month in Facebook, Instagram and Next Door applications.
- Oak Park Fire Safe Council began working closely with Fire Station 36, who help provide fire expertise to our group, and helped to facilitate the October Open House.
- We engaged the Center for Geospatial Science and Technology (CGST) to create an interactive map that will be available on our public website in January. This map will identify homeowners’ defensible space that needs to be mitigated and will provide a measuring tool to identify the boundaries of the defensible space for which Rancho Simi is responsible. We will be sharing this with Rancho Simi as well. In addition, the CGST has provided us with .png and .pdf versions of static maps of the different areas of Oak Park. These will also be made available on the website.
- We participated in multiple community events where we had a booth and shared information with the community regarding wildfire.
- We engaged PMF Consulting to provide monthly Social Media campaigns and a monthly newsletter. They will also provide some amount of website support as part of this engagement.
- We are having discussions with Rancho Simi Park and Rec (RSRPD) regarding a community fire resilient garden. This is proposed to be on RSRPD property that is currently occupied by the Water District. Both RSRPD and the Water District support this project. We will update you further as we make progress on this.
Fundraising and Grants
- We were awarded a $26,130 grant for marketing and community outreach, of which $8,100 was received this year, from the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council (from a Cal Fire grant). This was the first year of a 3-year grant.
- We received a small $2,500 grant from Ventura County Fire Safe Council for various marketing activities.
- We received over $10,000 in donations to assist our efforts. Donations can be made directly on our web page. We now also have the ability to accept donations in appreciated stock.
- We have been awarded a $10k grant from Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council for “Community Wildfire Protection Plan related work.” We will be able to start invoicing for this grant in January 2025.
- The Oak Park Fire Safe Council received a $623,000 grant from Cal Fire that provides funding to reduce the fire hazard along Medea and Lindero Creeks in Oak Park. These open space riparian areas are wholly owned and maintained by Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District (RSRPD), who will be working with us closely on this project. This was part of a larger $3 million grant that was award to the Ventura County Wildfire Collaborative, of which the Oak Park Fire Safe Council is a member. This is a 5-year project that provides CEQA permitting and work, initial mitigation of brush, dead wood, and non-indigenous trees from Lindero Creek, and ongoing maintenance for Lindero and Medea Creeks for another two years.
Volunteer
- We added a new member to the board. Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in working with us to help the community protect property and life from fire, or help homeowners to reduce or keep their insurance rates, please reach out.
General
- In January we held an election for a new slate of board members, who will be in place for the next two years.
Potential Projects for 2025
- Semi-annual meeting that includes all Firewise communities to share lessons learned and for educational purposes.
- Perform 150 new assessments in Oak Park
- Engage a dedicated Assessor for Oak Park
- Implement Year 1 of our Firewise 3-Year Plan
- Increase the percentage of homeowners in Firewise Communities who are providing their Firewise volunteer hours and payments made to third parties in order to maintain their Firewise accreditation.
