The Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, on the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara has partnered with Santa Barbara City Fire Department to assess the success of the Wildland Fire Suppression Assessment District. The special assessment program provides services such as chipping and defensible space inspections to the residents of the District . By partnering with the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, SB City Fire seeks to understand the attitudes of the residents in the wildland urban interface of Santa Barbara, as well as identify areas of the program that may need improvement in order to make it more efficient in reducing fire risk.
Through this partnership with SB City Fire, our masters project aims to determine the transferability of a special assessment program such as this one to other cities. A portion of this work was accomplished during internships backed by SB City Fire in June, July and August of 2015.