San Luis Obispo County Fireshed Project Wins 2025 CCBJ Business Achievement Award for Climate Resilience
The San Luis Obispo County Fire Safe Council, in partnership with Rincon Consultants, Inc., has been nationally recognized for its leadership in wildfire resilience. The San Luis Obispo County Fireshed Report and Fireshed Dashboard have received a 2025 Climate Change Business Journal (CCBJ) Business Achievement Award in the Climate Resilience category, underscoring the project’s innovation, impact, and statewide significance.
About the CCBJ & EBJ Business Achievement Awards
Each year, EBI, Inc. and its award selection committee honor outstanding achievements in both the environmental and climate-change industries. Awards are given across multiple categories, with winners announced by email, on the EBI website, and in public press releases.
EBI administers two separate award programs:
- Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) Business Achievement Awards
- Climate Change Business Journal (CCBJ) Business Achievement Awards
From October through December each year, EBJ and CCBJ solicit nominations from across the industry through email, their website, social media, advisory board referrals, and broader industry networks.
For the 2025 CCBJ awards, nominations were submitted as 200-word essays. Final award selections were made by CCBJ staff, advisory board members, and regular contributors. (Disclaimer: Company audits were not conducted to verify claims submitted with nominations.)
Award recipients will be formally recognized at the Environmental Industry Summit XXIV, held April 1–3, 2026 in San Diego, with in-person presentations at the EBJ & CCBJ Awards Banquet on April 2, 2026.
A Transformational Wildfire-Resilience Framework for SLO County
Funded through a CAL FIRE California Climate Investment grant, the Fireshed Project establishes a first-of-its-kind, GIS-based wildfire planning framework covering 2.1 million acres. The project defines 37 unique firesheds, each shaped by climate trends, regional fuel conditions, historic fire behavior, and decades of operational fire management insight.
This fireshed structure provides a consistent, data-driven foundation for wildfire adaptation planning across jurisdictions, enabling agencies and partners to coordinate priorities like vegetation management, fuel reduction, restoration, and preparedness.
The Fireshed Dashboard: Technology That Elevates Decision-Making
The accompanying Fireshed Dashboard transforms wildfire planning from static PDFs to an interactive, real-time decision-support tool. It integrates:
- High-resolution fire behavior modeling
- Updated fuels and vegetation layers
- Terrain and topographic data
- Climate-driven fire regime projections
- Vulnerability and socio-economic risk indicators
By connecting the interactive Dashboard with the comprehensive Fireshed Report, SLO County now has one of the most advanced resilience-planning toolsets in the state—empowering fire agencies, landowners, land managers, and policymakers to make informed, science-based decisions.
Advancing Climate Resilience and Equity for All Communities
The SLO County Fireshed Project strengthens regional climate resilience by:
- Quantifying present and future wildfire risk under shifting climate conditions
- Enhancing protection for vulnerable and disadvantaged communities
- Supporting funding and grant competitiveness through data-driven prioritization
- Improving multi-agency coordination across local, state, and federal partners
- Establishing a scalable and replicable planning model for counties statewide
A Statewide Standard for Climate Adaptation
This recognition from CCBJ and EBI, Inc. highlights the project as a national example of how science, technology, and collaboration can drive meaningful climate-resilience outcomes. The San Luis Obispo County Fireshed Report and Dashboard demonstrate what is possible when partners unite behind a shared vision for wildfire preparedness and community protection.
San Luis Obispo County is now widely viewed as a leader in climate adaptation, modeling the future of wildfire-resilience planning for California and beyond.
Link to the Report: 2025 Report