5 Strategies to Boost Community Impact: Lessons from California's Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan
As I write this, California is grappling with its most destructive fires in history. These wildfires have claimed at least 25 lives and displaced over 100,000 people. A flood of information (and misinformation) circulates about why this happened: water mismanagement, infrastructure failures, poor funding decisions, and the inability of our government to respond effectively to crises of this scale.
The overwhelming volume of unverified information makes it difficult to understand what went wrong and, more importantly, how to prevent such disasters in the future or at least better prepare for them.
So, are the programs and policies designed to address such crises effective?
Are they allocating sufficient resources, or are they setting ambitious goals that are difficult to achieve?
Are they focusing on the most critical priorities to protect our communities, assets, and lives?
Can we achieve lasting solutions without fundamentally changing how we build and plan our cities?
Answering these questions is vital as we face a future with more wildfires, floods, and hurricanes. In an era of disinformation and declining trust, a systematic evaluation of the potential and actual impacts of our programs and policies is essential.
In this article, I briefly examine California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force and its action plan to determine how they are designed, whether the envisioned outcomes are realistic, and whether the allocated resources align with the challenges of our time. This is not a detailed analysis of the action plan, but, a way to showcase why such analysis is important in designing programs that work.
Disclaimer: This article is not a critique of neither the taskforce nor my amazing and hardworking friends and colleagues at The Tasks force and the LA’s Mayors Office. It’s a pledge to re-review our programs and see how we can increase their effectiveness and community impact.
Los Angeles Wildfires (AP News, 2025)
What Does It Mean to Assess the Potential and Observed Impacts of Policies and Programs?
To design and implement more effective programs, we should evaluate both potential impacts (what might happen) and observed impacts (what has happened):
Assessing potential impacts: This involves predicting outcomes if a program is implemented. Is the program designed to achieve the desired results?
Assessing observed impacts: This looks at whether a program has achieved its intended outcomes and created the impacts it was designed for.
Both types of assessments are essential to determine if programs are working and where course corrections are needed. Without such evaluations, we risk being overwhelmed by unverified theories, eroding trust between institutions and communities.
California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force
California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force, introduced by Governor Newsom in 2021, serves as an example of how state-led initiatives aim to address climate crises. The task force’s California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan sets ambitious goals, such as increasing the pace of forest health projects, enhancing community protection, and improving statewide resilience.
The Task Force has directed substantial investments toward landscape and community protection programs, with $70 million allocated in Southern California alone and a total of $1.5 billion invested statewide over the past two years. These efforts have supported creating a foundation for addressing wildfire risks systematically and at scale.
One of its tools, the Interagency Treatment Dashboard, tracks progress, including over 1 million acres treated in 2023 through prescribed burns, thinning, and other methods.
Is the Taskforce Achieving the Desired Outcomes?
Short Answer: Not entirely, but, it has had notable successes so far.
Longer Answer: The Taskforce Action Plan envisions a comprehensive approach to wildfire resilience, including:
Risk reduction: Decreasing fire severity in high-priority areas through defensible spaces and fire breaks.
Community preparedness: Increasing evacuation readiness and implementing home-hardening measures.
Equity in resource allocation: Ensuring vulnerable populations benefit from resilience funding and programs.
A lot of ideas you hear in the news these days about how California could be more prepared (e.g. creating defensible spaces, evaluation planning), are already included in the plan!
However, the feasibility of the plan goals and intended outcomes raises some questions. Are the resources identified in the plan sufficient to meet the outcomes? Can we realistically achieve these goals given the pace of climate change and the limitations of aging infrastructure?
Are the intended outcomes aligned with planned resources?
While the action plan provides a strong foundation, some areas such as the following require greater clarity or prioritization:
Preparedness Plans and Criteria:
Indicators for evacuation readiness, public awareness, and local resilience plans should be more detailed. For example, how do we measure residents’ awareness of evacuation routes?
Workforce Development:
Clearer plans for training inspectors, responders, and public educators could support readiness for post-disaster recovery.
Technology and Tools:
Expanding the use of GIS and dashboards to track community-specific preparedness and equity metrics.
Equity-Focused Outcomes:
The plan should measure tangible benefits to vulnerable populations, such as the percentage of uninsured housing units supported.
Are the resources sufficient to get to the intended outcomes?
Is the Interagency Treatment Data Dashboard Tracking Action Plan Outcomes?
Short Answer: Not entirely, but, it’s a great start.
Longer Answer: The Interagency Treatment Dashboard focuses on land-based metrics, such as acres treated and types of treatments (e.g., prescribed burns, thinning). While helpful, it still does not cover critical community-focused outcomes like evacuation readiness, home-hardening efforts, and equity metrics.
To fully reflect the plan’s vision, the dashboard could:
Track community-specific metrics, such as public awareness and evacuation preparedness.
Include equity-focused indicators, measuring resource distribution to vulnerable populations.
Align treatment metrics with community outcomes, evaluating the effectiveness of interventions.
Incorporate recovery indicators, tracking rebuilding efforts and ecological recovery post-fire.
To be fair, designing Statewide data systems is very complex and resource intensive. I experienced this complexity first hand when led the development of the State’s Homeless Data Integration System. The State has done a great job in starting to the Interagency Treatment Dashboard, despite its shortcoming. This assessment shows the complexity of tracking the success of our programs and policies at the community level.
The Wildfire and Forest Resilience Dashboard (i.e. The Interagency Treatment Dashboard)
So, how can we boost the community impact of our programs?
California’s institutions are grappling with the mismatch between the accelerating pace of environmental changes and the slower evolution of our policies, infrastructure, and governance. This isn’t unique to California; it’s a global challenge.
Assess potential and observed impacts of policies and programs.
Examine both the potential and observed impacts of policies and programs to see what works or does not work. Impact isn’t just about acres treated or dollars spent; it’s about tangible results—what communities actually gain in the end.
Design programs, grounded in reality.
Start with defining the intended outcomes and go backwards to identify the resources you need. If you don’t have enough resources to get to the outcomes, adjust your program.
We should recognize and address our ambition bias, becoming more realistic about what we can and cannot do. When ambitions aren’t matched with the resources allocated, they foster distrust and frustration.
Prioritize.
We can’t do everything, everywhere, especially with limited resources and the rapid changes our cities face.
Make tough but necessary decisions.
Some areas we’ve developed are becoming too costly to protect in the face of climate change. Think about an area that’s going to be under the water in just the next twenty years. It’s time to get more creative, exploring urban development patterns better suited to today’s realities, such as patterns that address environmental changes, housing needs, remote work trends, and an aging population.
Connect the dots.
This is not just a climate change issue. Responding to these complexities requires a holistic, systems-based approach. We must address climate impacts while simultaneously meeting our other goals (e.g. responding to our aging population and increasing housing demand).
I’m proud of what the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force has accomplished, despite the challenges it faces. Implementing such programs is both complex and resource-intensive. The dedicated government staff, whom several of them are my close friends, have been working tirelessly to design and implement the Task Force’s plan, and I appreciate their hard work and commitment.
At The Triangle, we partner with organizations to enhance the community impact of their programs and policies.
We partner with organizations to evaluate both the potential and actual impacts of their programs and policies, identifying what works and what needs improvement as they respond to climate impacts, aging population, and other factors reshaping our cities.
