Twenty-five students from Cal Poly are working on a community wildfire protection plan for Cambria.
“That’s basically a planning document that lays out the potential risks for that community in regard to wildfire,” said Sam Levy, 4th-year Forest & Fire Sciences major at Cal Poly.
Every year, Cal Poly students put together a wildfire protection plan for a local community. It’s been 10 years since Cambria was the focus.
“We’re looking at the overall wildfire threat to Cambria, like fuel conditions, layout of the town in terms of if a fire were to happen, how difficult would it be to evacuate people, how many resources are available to respond to that fire, and also what could be changed policy-wise and infrastructure-wise to mitigate that threat,” Levy explained.
Local agencies could use the students’ findings in fire plans.
Dr. Chris Dicus has been teaching at Cal Poly for 24 years. His first time working on the plan was studying Cambria, and now, in his final year teaching, he is ending it off with the community of Cambria.
“In our experience, some of the work that has been done by the students is literally copied and pasted into grant applications, which implements the very suggestion that students come up with,” Dicus said.
The students have been spending time in Cambria, getting to know the town.
"Cambria is located in a pine forest. There’s a lot of fuel available to burn if a fire were to happen, so we’ve been looking at that and how fuel reduction projects could help mitigate that threat,” Levy said.
“It’s a complex issue. You’re not just dealing with the fuels, you’re dealing with the road infrastructure and the demographics in the community; there are a lot of elderly people. And then also getting that communication of what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it,” said Cadence Estermann, 3rd-year Forest & Fire Sciences major at Cal Poly.
The final presentations will be shown to various professionals on June 3, simulating a presentation before the board of supervisors.
“We have had supervisors attend. Last year, we gave this before 24 professionals from a wide variety of disciplines that were coming as far away as Santa Barbara to hear their presentations,” Dicus said.
