Topic: Narrowing the Path to Conflagration: Community and Home Wildfire Risk Reduction
Date: May 19, 2025
**NEW MEETING LOCATION**
Location: Angeles National Forest Headquarters - 701 N. Santa Anita Ave, Arcadia, CA 91006 - Training Center
Speaker: Steve Hawks, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
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Schedule:
11:15 - 11:30 AM: Check-in & Networking
11:30 - 11:45 AM: Chapter Business
11:45 - 1:00 PM: Keynote Presentation
Description:
Conflagrations have resulted in significant human, property, and financial loss across the United States. The Tubbs Fire (CA, 2017), Camp Fire (CA, 2018), Marshall Fire (CO, 2021), Lahaina Fire (HI, 2023), and the recent Eaton and Palisades Fires highlight the vulnerability of communities with dense housing, interconnected urban fuels (e.g., vegetation, fences, vehicles, and sheds), and vulnerable building materials that struggle to withstand even non-intense fire conditions. In this context, the only path forward is to make homes and communities survivable and insurable through wildfire risk reduction.
About IBHS:
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit scientific research and communications organization supported by property insurers, reinsurers, and affiliated companies. IBHS’s building safety research leads to real-world solutions for home and business owners, helping to create more resilient communities.
Why IBHS? Severe weather disrupts lives, displaces families, and drives financial loss. IBHS delivers top-tier science and translates it into action so we can prevent avoidable suffering, strengthen our homes and businesses, inform the insurance industry, and support thriving communities.
Biography:
Steve Hawks is the Senior Director for Wildfire for the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). Steve’s responsibilities at IBHS include wildfire policy and code development, post-fire analysis, implementation of the Wildfire Prepared Home program, and development of the Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood program. He also serves on the Underwriter’s Laboratory Fire Safety Research Institute’s Wildfire Advisory Committee and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo WUI Fire Institute’s Advisory Council.
Steve has over three decades of experience in wildland firefighting and prevention, having served since 1989 with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) until his retirement in December 2022. Steve spent the first 24 years of his career from firefighter to battalion chief responding to wildfires and all types of emergency incidents. The last 6 years of his career, he worked in the CAL FIRE – Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation Division, retiring as an Assistant Deputy Director. Additionally, he served for 13 years on CAL FIRE Incident Management Teams. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Forest Resource Management with a minor in Business Administration from Humboldt State University.
SOCIETY OF FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERS