Over the past decade, California has faced an alarming increase in wildfire activity, with fires becoming larger, more frequent and more destructive. In Santa Cruz, the CZU Lightning Complex fire burned over 86, acres, destroyed nearly 1, structures and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. More recently, the Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California have demonstrated just how unpredictable and fast-moving wildfires can be.
As climate change intensifies fire conditions, it is clear that Santa Cruz must continue to take proactive steps to reduce risk and increase community resilience. The city of Santa Cruz has already implemented several wildfire preparedness and prevention strategies. We have strengthened evacuation planning, expanded our Weed Abatement Program to reduce fuel loads and promoted Firewise USA recognized communities, such as Prospect Heights, Highland and Moore Creek, to encourage neighborhood-led fire preparedness.
Tools like Genasys and CruzAware give residents real-time evacuation updates, and we continue to work with local partners to educate the public on disaster preparedness and home hardening.
These are critical steps β but we must do more. We must also increase community engagement to reach underrepresented populations, expand direct outreach to Spanish-speaking residents and provide targeted support to seniors and individuals with limited mobility who may require additional evacuation assistance.
To better prepare for the reality of power outages, prolonged fire events and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, we need to harden our water delivery systems, enhance the resilience of public utilities and regularly monitor and maintain city-owned open spaces to mitigate fire risks. We must also work to increase community registration for CruzAware so that more residents receive timely emergency alerts when every second counts.
