Event

Managing Wildfires in Los Angeles County

Name: Managing Wildfires in Los Angeles County | The Huntington
Location: The Huntington

Moderated by historian Wade Graham, Chief Drew Smith and Chief Ron Durbin of the Los Angeles County Fire Department discuss the challenges of wildland fires in the Los Angeles area from both a management and ecological perspective.

Lectures

Classes

Wade Graham is a historian, journalist, and landscape designer based in Los Angeles. He is the author of American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to our Back Yards, What Our Gardens Tell Us About Who We Are, a cultural history of gardens in America (HarperCollins, 2011), Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World, a global history of visionary urbanism (HarperCollins, 2016), and Braided Waters: Environment and Society in Molokai, Hawaii, an environmental history of Hawaii (University of California Press, 2018) ), and the upcoming Southland: An Atlas and Almanac of Los Angeles County (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2024). He writes a monthly environment column for the UK magazine Perspective, and has written on the environment, landscape, urbanism, and the arts for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Los Angeles Times, Outside and other publications.

He has a Ph.D in American history. He taught urbanism and environmental policy at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, for 11 years. Since 1999, he has been a trustee of Glen Canyon Institute, a Colorado River restoration group based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Drew Smith is a 34-year veteran of the fire service, currently serving as the Assistant Chief for Division VII of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. A second-generation firefighter, he began his career with the Los Angeles County hand crews in 1988.

Before being promoted to Assistant Chief, he has filled the positions of Firefighter, Paramedic, Engineer, Captain, Superintendent and Battalion Chief. His collateral duty assignments include overseeing hand crew operations, prescribed fire/fuel modification and risk assessment. He also shares responsibility with the Ventura County Fire Department and the USFS Angeles National Forest in conducting fire behavior research, risk analysis, and safety.

Chief Smith is a qualified Fire Behavior Analyst (FBAN), Operations Section Chief (OPSC), and RX Fire Boss (RXB1). He has also been an instructor at the National Advanced Fire and Resource Institute (NAFRI) since 2004. He has significant experience in both initial attack and extended attack incidents and has been assigned to an Interagency Incident Management Team since 2000. He is a lifelong resident of Newbury Park.

Ron Durbin is the current Forestry Division Chief with over 25 years in the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

He is a Registered Professional Forester (RPF) and holds three Masters degrees in landscape architecture, business administration, and management and leadership.

He has served on the LA County Regional Planning Environmental Review Board for over 12 years and currently co-chairs the Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Alliance with the Third District Board of Supervisors Field Deputy: the SMMFSA is a coordinating group of local agencies focused on providing resources and education to ensure environmentally sensitive defensible-space implementation.