The Berkeley Gateway Accelerator is hosting a community event Thursday focused on the future of wildfire safety strategies and the technology being developed to better understand and fight fires.
“Deep Tech and the Future of the Wildland-Urban Interface” is a Berkeley FireBreak event that is also hosted by the University of California, Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance.
It is billed as the first in a series of gatherings designed to bring people together who are “shaping the East Bay’s wildfire future.”
Organizers say the programs will tap into the expertise of academics, fire officials, policy makers, risk managers, technologists and entrepreneurs, among others.
Attendees at Thursday’s event will hear opening remarks from Berkeley Fire Department officials and then a panel discussion featuring Michael Goliner of the UC Berkeley Fire Research Lab, Jeff Fields of the UC Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance and Dave Winnacker of XyloPlan, a digital fire simulator and risk assessment platform.
Berkeley Fire Assistant Chief Colin Arnold said one of the department’s key goals is to get homeowners, particularly in the fire-vulnerable hills neighborhoods, all moving in the right direction.
“The question for this group is what tools are out there, what tools need to be designed, in order to facilitate that relationship between homeowners and the risk that they face.”
Berkeley Fire Assistant Chief Colin Arnold
“The question for this group is what tools are out there, what tools need to be designed, in order to facilitate that relationship between homeowners and the risk that they face,” said Arnold, who heads the department’s Wildland Urban Interface Division.
Thursday’s discussion is one of four planned FireBreak events in the series and is intended to define “how the East Bay’s academic, research, entrepreneurial, and policy communities can work together to advance wildfire innovation,” according to organizers.
One of the main goals is to gather feedback and input from people working on the frontlines of fire safety and response.
“We’re really trying to involve East Bay fire agencies in the conversation, not to answer questions from the general public or to even be on a panel but to kind of open up each one of these events so we can hear from them about priorities that they have and what don’t people know about that may be in progress and then also how can we help,” said BGA spokesperson Alex Ashton. “I think that’s at the heart of a lot of this initiative.”
The event is open to anyone and free to attend but space is limited so registration is required. People can register online.
