Trina Wally, executive director of the Calaveras County Resource Conservation District, opened the first annual Firewise Calaveras Festival and thanked volunteers who stood up the event in six weeks to share information on home defense, home hardening and community wildfire preparedness.

Martin Huberty, board chair for the county Board of Supervisors, told attendees that recent lightning-caused fires showed the value of interagency communication and announced an evacuation rehearsal with the Forest Meadows homeowners association. “Nothing became more evident when the 2 7 lightning fire happened,” Huberty said, thanking homeowners and local venues for defensible-space work.

Congressman Tom Pintock framed the event in national policy terms, arguing that environmental review and litigation have slowed federal timber management. Pintock said a modern forest-management plan can take “an average of 4 and a half years to complete” with environmental reports he described as “more than 800 pages” and claimed that federal timber harvest on national lands has fallen about 80 percent since reforms in the 1970s. He pointed to the Tahoe Basin categorical exclusion as a model and said his federal bills (including a measure he called the “Fix Our Forest Act” and a pending HR 178) seek to restore faster thinning and “aggressive initial attack” on fires.

The Resource Conservation District and its board president, Julia Marsili, described the RCD’s expanding work beyond fuel reduction to include habitat restoration, watershed protection and collaboration with local producers and insurance representatives to build ‘fire-adapted communities.’ Marsili said the work requires coordinated accountability from homeowners, local agencies, Cal OES and Cal FIRE.

The festival also showcased private-sector products and local projects: New Cal Metals displayed ember- and flame-blocking vent products and gutter-guard options, while local forest volunteers and contractors presented before-and-after photos of fuel-break work on county corridors.

The event closed with practical preparedness advice, including encouragement to sign up for Calaveras County’s Everbridge alerts and to use apps such as Watch Duty and the Red Cross app for situational information during incidents.

The festival brought local officials, state fire-prevention staff, vendors and volunteer crews together to share tools and next steps. Organizers said they plan to expand the Firewise Calaveras effort in coming years and urged residents to apply the home-hardening and defensible‑space guidance discussed at the event.