We're your neighbors. And we're tired of watching things burn.
NCPBA was built by people who live here, work this land, and understand what's at stake if we don't bring good fire back to the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Built from the ground up. By the community, for the community.
The Nevada County Prescribed Burn Association was founded on a simple conviction: the crisis in our forests can't be solved without all of us working together.
Prescribed fire is one of the most effective tools we have for reducing catastrophic wildfire risk and restoring ecological health to fire-adapted landscapes. But using it safely and legally takes coordination, equipment, trained hands, and trust. That's what NCPBA exists to provide.
We're a community of landowners and volunteers who show up for each other's burns, share knowledge and equipment, and work in close partnership with CAL FIRE, the Nevada County Resource Conservation District, and the Wildfire Ready Coalition of Nevada County. We're not here to replace agency fire management. We're here to extend its reach into the places where community-led action makes the difference.
Three principles that guide everything we do.
Community-led
Every burn we support is planned and conducted by the landowner. Our role is to show up with trained volunteers, shared equipment, and organizational support. The land is yours. The decision is yours. We back you up.
Agency-partnered
We work within the regulatory framework, not around it. That means close coordination with CAL FIRE on burn permits, weather windows, and fire behavior. Our members understand the rules because following them is what makes this work sustainable.
Ecologically grounded
Prescribed fire isn't just a fuel management tool. It's an ecological process that this landscape evolved with. We take that seriously in how we plan burns, choose timing, and think about long-term land health.
The people behind the organization.
I work in landscape resilience and fuels management with the Yuba Watershed Institute, bringing a background in botany, habitat restoration, native plant horticulture, and field ecology. I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in Biological Sciences, and have worked across a range of ecological projects, from botanical and nesting-bird surveys to landscape-scale forest resilience efforts.
As Board Chair of the Nevada County Prescribed Burn Association, I am passionate about building community connections, sharing knowledge, and helping landowners access the relationships and resources they need to use prescribed fire as a land stewardship tool. I see the PBA as a way to bring people together around caring for the land, reducing wildfire risk, and restoring fire's place in local ecosystems. I previously served four years on the Nevada City Fire Safety Advisory Committee, and am a leader in my small Firewise Community in uptown Nevada City.
When considering how to work with the land, I am more interested in what we leave and steward than what we take away.
A Nevada City-based filmmaker, land steward, and prescribed fire practitioner, I've spent over a decade documenting conservation, land stewardship and indigenous allyship work across the Sierra. The more I talked to the experts, the more I saw a throughline: fire's absence was the primary cause of our forest's ill health.
When YBBC decided to disband, I took up the mantle to incorporate the Nevada County Prescribed Burn Association and appoint its original board. My vision for getting the NCPBA off the ground is simple: find the folks whose eyes light up when they are asked about putting fire back on the ground and bring them together to share the gospel of the drip torch.
Coming Soon
Our Advisory Council brings together expertise in fire ecology, conservation, land management, and local policy to help guide NCPBA's work.