CWPP
Open Space and Parklands Surrounding Oak Park
Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP), which are developed collaboratively by citizens and federal, state, and local management agencies,are blueprints for preparedness at the neighborhood level. They organize a community’s efforts to protect itself against wildfire and empower citizens to move in a cohesive, common direction. Among the key goals of a CWPP, are to:
- Align with the local fire agency’s cohesive pre-fire strategy, which includes educating homeowners and building understanding of wildland fire, ensuring defensible space- clearing and structure- hardening, safeguarding communities through fuel treatment, and protecting evacuation corridors
- Identify and prioritize areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatment
- Recommend the types and methods of treatment that will protect the community
- Recommend measures to reduce the ignitability of structures throughout the area addressed by the plan
- Develop a robust wildfire communications plan for both emergencies and non-emergencies
Portions of our CWPP are drawn from information contained in the Oak Park Wildlife Risk Assessment completed in January, 2023, by Sure-Fire Training, Inc.
No community is an island when it comes to a wildfire protection plan. Oak Park Fire Safe Council (OPFSC) worked closely with several agencies and groups to develop this document. Our CWPP is a bottom-up document based upon the Wildfire Risk Assessment that was developed by community members and vetted by our primary partner organizations. Our CWPP addressed the following areas:
- Community
- Partners
- Community education and engagement
- Structural hardening
- Defensible space
- Fuels treatment
- Ingress and egress
In each of the major areas we identify priorities, and completed, ongoing and future projects. Thus, the CWPP is a living document that is a three-year roadmap of priorities, what we have accomplished and what we intend to accomplish in the future. It will be updated on a three-year cadence.
The organizations that were consulted in the development of this document are:
- Ventura County Fire Department
- Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
- Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council
- Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council (MAC)
- Community Foundation of Oak Park
- Oak Park Fire Safe Council
- Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District (RSRPD)
The Oak Park CWPP is complete and has been submitted to the relevant authorities for signature. Once the CWPP is executed it enables Oak Park to apply for a larger number and variety of grants to support our wildfire prevention needs.