As fire season gets ready to blaze into full force communities around California are getting ready too. In some places this means clearing out excess vegetation, elsewhere it means hardening homes to make them more resilient to fire -- but no matter the work, it's more and more clear that Californians are approaching it with a new sense of urgency prompted by the past two years of devastating fire seasons. 

On this edition of How to Bay Area we speak to fire prevention experts to learn about the work we should all be doing to prepare our homes, our communities and ourselves for fire season. This will include practical home hardening tips as well as explainers on how to interpret the torrent of information that broadcasts out from disaster zones when fires begin. 

Host: KCBS reporter Keith Menconi

Guests: 

• Todd Lando, executive coordinator at Fire Safe Marin
• Michele Steinberg, the wildfire division director at the National Fire Protection Association 
• Lucas Spelman, Cal Fire Battalion Chief 

Resources:

• Firewise, a national program from the National Fire Protection Association, which recognizes communities that meet certain fire safety standards and provides those communities with support. Learn how to become a Firewise site here. And learn how to prepare your home for wildfire here.  
• Cal Fire's Ready Fore Wildfire website with more helpful information on how to prevent the spread of wildfires. 

Production Note:

This edition of How to Bay Area first aired on KCBS as an episode of In Depth. This version of the program has been expanded to include more tips on fire prevention than we could fit in the broadcast.