Fire Safe People - Preparing Portland for Fast Fires

With fire seasons growing more destructive and more deadly, we see the limits of our efforts to control wildfire across vast landscapes.

The way we respond and adapt to inevitable wildfires matter for the safety of our homes and communities, the availability of insurance and the ability of firefighters to respond.

Please join us for a special event that will explore a vision for fire safe people across Portland. This event will feature top experts in wildfire communications who are leading the way on inspiring action in communities across the West, and it will engage all attendees in a collaborative brainstorming session that will explore how we can bring humor, culture and Portland's identify to inspire action across our city.

Through this event we seek to answer three questions:

1. What are the dominant forces in destructive fires that Portlanders must prepare for?
2. What are communities doing to scale the mitigations that matter?
3. How can we bring story, humor and culture to connect with people & encourage action?

The goal of this event is to help Firewise leaders, city employees, and residents explore how we can help Portland scale the mitigations that matter to preventing home and community loss in fast moving fires.

The event starts at 8:30 AM. Detailed agenda and information below.

Convened by Kim Kosmas, City of Portland Fire

Supported by Ralph Bloemers, Director of Fire Safe Communities, Todd Lando, Marin Wildfire Authority, and Jason Brooks, FireAside.

Info: Since the Eagle Creek fire of 2017 and the Labor Day fires of 2020, Portland has seen a proliferation of firewise community groups. Senior Fire Inspector Kim Kosmas will open the session with a vision for the future, a vision where communities across Portland have become a force multiplier before fire comes.

Info: Take a visual journey into fast fires across the West to understand the dominant forces at play, become fluent in fire weather, and the mitigaitons that matter. Director of Fire Safe Communities and award-winning filmmaker Ralph Bloemers will share incredible visuals from destrutive fires and lay out what the research tells us we can do to prepare before fire comes

Info: Communities are creating dedicated funding and building out capacity focused on scaling home retrofitting and community risk reduction. The Marin Wildfire Authority and Fire Safe Marin have deployed an integrated and focused campaign to scale the mitigations that matter in and around the homes. They are successfully engaging residents and focusing them on taking action for maximum community benefit. Learn what they are doing, and how their experiences might inform and inspire action here in Portland.

Host or Publisher The Elemental Film Team