Marin firm aims to track and fix hazards linked to North Bay’s fire, earthquake threats

With California experts looking at the strong likelihood of a major earthquake hitting the Bay Area within the next 20 years — on top of the escalating wildfire and flooding threats linked in large part to climate change — North Bay emergency officials are racing against time and nature to boost preparedness.

The private sector also is angling to help, and a Marin County-based platform is carving out a new niche for itself in fire risk prevention and mitigation.

Fire Aside, of San Anselmo, is a computer-based program that aims to record, track and fix — with the help of grant-funding — hazards relative to looming disasters. The software has logged 32,000 properties in 90 communities within four states, including communities in the North Bay.

Last month, the platform received a $350,000 infusion of venture capital from Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, and the program is seeing expanding use among local emergency management and fire agencies.

Fire Aside co-founder and CEO Jason Brooks, a tech entrepreneur from Fairfax, has seen the threat firsthand when the Woodward Fire of August 2020 became the impetus for creating the company. The blaze that consumed almost 5,000 acres along the Point Reyes National Seashore spurred him to evaluate his own property in the heavily-wooded Marin County haven.

“I woke up with ash at my house,” he said. “That makes it very real.”

He and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Don Moore of San Rafael found themselves between projects and discussed how to turn their motivation into action.

Fire Aside — meaning to place out of the way — started out four years ago as a prototype for Marin County and has grown from there, capturing public sector clients and investors.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department has adopted the program for fire-risk property inspections with a customized, model program now being developed to gauge risk from other disasters such as earthquakes, floods and super storms.

That technology, to operate under the name Triage, will undergo a drill next month with estimated readiness by spring, Santa Rosa Fire Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Brittany Miller said. Her counterpart Jared McDaniel, Santa Rosa Fire inspector and vegetation manager, already runs the Fire Aside program in Sonoma County’s largest city.

Miller wants to chronicle and address infrastructure hazards that will include schools, hospitals, culverts, bridges, water tanks, treatment plants and the estimated more than 100,000 city properties — private and commercial. That will ease the process of receiving funding after a disaster.

With the high potential for a major earthquake striking the Bay Area in the next two decades, according to the California Earthquake Authority, Miller stands on guard and welcomes the new technology.

Part of that reason is because the Rodgers Creek Fault is linked to the Hayward Fault underneath San Pablo Bay, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Geologists and seismologists have long warned the Hayward fault is long overdue to rumble in a big way.

Santa Rosa State Farm Insurance Agent Kathy Crim predicts that future date will be “the worst day of my career” because so many clients don’t have insurance to cover such catastrophes and have not taken the necessary precautions.

“I agree,” Miller said regarding Crim’s assessment. “It’s not a question of if, but when.”

Improving wildfire preparedness

Wildfires in Sonoma County also present a constant threat.

McDaniel singled out Bennett Valley and Fountaingrove, which had already been severely damaged by the Nuns and Tubbs fires in 2017, as particular areas in need of improvements.

McDaniel is creating a database from Fire Aside data gained through inspections and feedback from property owners that will tell the city “what hazards are in the community.”

Risk assessment goes way beyond pruning trees and smart landscaping. The program may recommend simple home hardening to-dos from gutter guards and specialty vents to limiting patio furniture and the type of skylights installed.

“Our goal is the homeowner becomes better educated,” he said.

This education may include how to hire a landscape contractor to remove debris and other elements that could fuel a fire.

He and Miller characterized the old paper inspection forms their fire agency once used as “cumbersome and slow.”

Fire Aside has replaced them with software that is simpler, more efficient and more interactive.

“It has huge appeal. It’s the most simplistic application I’ve ever seen,” McDaniel said.

What’s happening next door?

Napa Communities Firewise Foundation board Vice Chairwoman Piper Cole’s Calistoga home was spared in the Tubbs Fire.

“Fortunately, we didn’t lose our house, but we evacuated for 13 days,” Cole said.

A year into using the Fire Aside program, Cole calls it “a game changer,” especially in the process of creating reports gained from easy processing of data.

Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority Executive Director Mark Brown, along with his on-the-ground firefighting specialists, started working with Fire Aside in 2020.

Marin fire agencies conduct 33,000 inspections a year. “We didn’t think we would be able to find a tool efficient enough,” Brown said.

Fire Aside’s evaluation program — complete with pictures and graphics — uses a custom field app that contains thousands of detailed recommendations unique to a community’s ecosystem, such as areas with deep, dense brush.

“Every single North Bay resident has been impacted by wildfire over the past six years, and the reality of our climate future is that communities must take proactive and thoughtful approaches to mitigate this risk to keep their citizens safe,” Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures founder and Managing Partner Zachary Kushel said. “The Fire Aside platform stands out because of its ability to do just that.”

Susan Wood covers law, cannabis, production, tech, energy, transportation, agriculture as well as banking and finance. She can be reached at 530-545-8662 or susan.wood@busjrnl.com