"The Ventura County Prescribed Burn Association (VCPBA) supports the "Wildfire Resiliency & Be Disaster Ready" priority action by partnering with landowners to reduce risk from wildfire by creating defensible space and stewarding Ventura County's local ecosystems. In 2017, with the Thomas Fire, California saw the start of record-breaking, disastrous wildfires throughout the state. The accumulation of deadwood and transition from native grasslands and forbs to non-native grasslands has severely increased fire risk to humans and vulnerable ecosystems such as Valley Oak Woodlands. Valley oaks have thinner bark than Coast Live oaks and are thus more vulnerable to cambium damage during high-severity fires. At the VCPBA's climate action project, the VCPBA will tour Valley Oaks that suffered cambium damage from understory shrubs that burned in the Thomas Fire and directly apply that knowledge with real-time land stewardship. The VCPBA will work with volunteers to create burn piles in a Valley oak woodland to protect this increasingly rare oak from deadwood, ladder fuels, and high-risk understory shrubs. By doing understory thinning, the Valley oak trees will become more fire-hardened, so they are not as vulnerable to mortality in future wildfires. Additionally, this woodland lies within the high fire risk community of upper Ojai Valley and is adjacent to a drainage with the highly flammable and non-native Arundo donax. By stewarding this ecosystem with burn piles, the VCPBA is contributing to a matrix of fire breaks that will slow the rate of fire and increase safety for the community if another wildfire were to move through this landscape. "