Good Fire Alliance
Learning and Burning Together in the North Bay
Welcome to our community of neighbors helping neighbors to put good fire on the ground! If you are interested in getting your property in the queue for a prescribed burn, please fill out this Intake Form.
If you’d like to learn about upcoming prescribed burns; pile burning, fire ecology or permitting workshops; community BBQs; and all other events hosted by the members of the Good Fire Alliance, join our listserv by emailing main+subscribe@gfa.groups.io – or bookmark this page.
Check out links to local resources below and if you have additional questions, email us directly at goodfirealliance@gmail.com.
Local Resources
Intake form for prescribed burns in the North Bay
Prescribed burn guide for Sonoma County
Tips for Building Burn Piles for Sonoma County (including links for required permits, and phone numbers to call)
Quemando Pilas en Sonoma (Building Burn Piles in Sonoma in Spanish)
Contractors to assist with thinning, pile burning, broadcast burning prep, invasive species, post-fire restoration
Training Opportunities:
Fire Forward offers a variety of trainings, from volunteers looking to assist with burns to people pursuing careers as fire practitioners.
Pepperwood Preserve offers frequent pile burning workshops.
LandPaths organizes unique community “patch burns” — smaller, low-severity burns that are open to everyone, from children to elders.
Good Fire Alliance Instagram page
Articles, Webinars, Books on Beneficial Fire
If you are new to prescribed fire:
A San Francisco Chronicle feature with illustrations of what California’s forests looked like before and after fire suppression and an explanation of how good fire can reverse these changes
A Bay Nature article by Dr. Don Hankins (Plains Miwok), “Reading the Landscape for Fire”
Adapting western North American forests to climate change and wildfires: 10 common questions summarizes over 300 peer-reviewed studies on the benefits of prescribed fire
Books: California Indians and Their Environment and Tending the Wild document Indigenous stewardship practices, including cultural fires, in what is now California
A New York Times video featuring the work of some of the GFA fire practitioners
If you have been working with beneficial fires for a while:
Prescribed Fire Effects in Coast Redwood Forests in the Bay Area, by Taj Katuna, UC Berkeley
Managing Invasive Species with Good Fire, by Devyn Friedfel, Pepperwood Preserve
Lessons Learned on Prescribed Fire, Volume 1, by Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council (submit your lessons!)
California Fire Science Consortium is a great resource for the latest research and webinars on good fire