Cobb Forest Summit Highlights
- Shasta McBride
- 3 hours ago
- 9 min read
On Saturday, June 7, over 100 community members, speakers, and exhibitors gathered on a balmy Saturday afternoon at the historic Little Red Schoolhouse in Cobb to help SSCRA kick off our two-year project to create a local "Community Wildfire Protection Plan" (CWPP) for the Cobb Mountain Area.
The day started with a welcome by Jessica Pyska, Lake County Supervisor for District 5, a Cobb area native and a strong supporter of SSCRA's work to promote a fire-adapted landscape and culture in the community. Jessica was followed by Carol Rice, of Wildland Resources Management. Carol is one of the originators of the CWPP program, which is now being adapted nationwide as a framework through which local communities can come together to focus on the complex challenges of living in the "wildland urban interface" (WUI)
The first presentation panel, "Cultivating a Fire-Adapted Landscape and Culture in the Cobb Mountain Area Today" was offered by local Tribal members: Ron Montez - Tribal elder and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, from the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, whose traditional territory includes the Cobb Mountain area, Corine Pearce - master Pomo basket weaver and eco-educator, and Jordan Reyes, member of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians, whose traditional territory also includes the Cobb Mountain area, and who is the Field Coordinator for the Lake County-based Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Alliance (TERA).
Chris Nettles' article on Corine's powerful presentation (below) will give you a good feeling for how this panel set the stage for the day, orienting the community to the need for a deep re-alignment of our relationship with the natural landscape here in the Cobb Mountain Area.
Other presentations included:
"Understanding the Cobb Mountain Forest Ecosystem" - offered by forest ecologist Lawrence Ray. Lawrence also donated over 100 oak seedlings for Summit attendees, grown from acorns gathered in the area. Lawrence offered a primer on forest ecosystems including the historic role of fire as a principal ecological process.
"Firewise communities: Home Safety in the Wildland Urban Interface" - Magdalena Valderrama, Michael Peterson, Wendy Collins. These three experienced community organizers shared success stories, challenges, and tips on organizing neighbors for collective action to increase home fire safety.
"Managing large acreage forestlands" - Richie Bucher, CAL FIRE manager of Boggs Mountain State Demonstration Forest, Scott Parady, Loch Lomond Arts and Ecology Center, and Peter Hess, Hess Family. Three different perspectives on the challenges of working with the land in a fire-adapted ecosystem from a trio of experienced local practitioners.
"Fire Insurance Update" - Patrick Lambert, Farmers Insurance and Annie Barbour, United Policyholders. A sometimes humorous and consistently, deeply informative review of the current state of coverage options in California
"Building Local Capacity to Transform Our Landscape" - Jeff Lucas, Community Development Services, Robert Thomas, R2 & Co, Magdalena Valderrama, SSCRA, Eliot Hurwitz SSCRA. Taking a step back to discuss some of the fundamental challenges and opportunities we have in our goal to become a truly fire-adapted community.
"2025 Fire Season Preview" - Paul Duncan, CAL FIRE Lake County Division Chief wrapped up the day with a report on current fire conditions and how Cal Fire is gearing up to meet the coming season.
All of the presentations were recorded and are available to review on the SSCRA website HERE.
The Cobb Forest Summit also featured Exhibitors from
Firewise Communities - local Cobb area neighborhoods
TERA - Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Alliance
North Coast Opportunities (NCO), and the Community Emergency Response Corps (CERC)
CAL FIRE
SSCRA
United Policyholders Association
Friends of Boggs Mountain
Cobb Alert Net
American Red Cross
Living Here Means Caring Here: Learning from Corine Pearce at the Cobb Mountain Forest Summit by Chris Nettles, PhD
One of the highlights of the Cobb Mountain Forest Summit for me was hearing Corine Pearce speak near the start of the day. She is a longtime basket weaver, California naturalist, and elder with deep roots in the Indigenous communities of Lake and Mendocino counties. Her reflections were powerful, painful, and necessary. For many of us, especially those of European ancestry who are not part of a California tribal community, her words may have been jarring. But the real challenge wasn't just hearing difficult historical facts. It was the deeper call to change how we see the world around us, how we live on this land, and how we understand our responsibilities to it. Understanding the need for such changes, and what it will take to make them, will be an important part of the new Cobb Mt. Community Wildfire Protection Plan that we will be drafting together as a community over the coming two years.
Corine spoke from a grounded and ancient perspective, one in which land is not a commodity but kin. "I own [the land] like I own this man right here. It's my uncle," she said, referring to fellow panelist Ron Montez. "I can't make him do what I want him to do, but I can take care of him and he's gonna take care of me in return. That's how we feel about the trees and the food forests that we created."
This isn't metaphor or sentimentality. It's a lived ethic passed down through generations. It is a worldview where so-called "wild" landscapes and fire are not threats, but relatives. They are necessary forces for connection and renewal. She is calling for a shift in how we relate to place, one grounded in observation, long-term care, and reciprocity. For many of us raised with Western values of ownership, control, and aesthetic order, this can feel disorienting. But that disorientation is part of the medicine.
One of the most direct parts of Corine's talk was her historical framing. She reminded us that "unsettlers have only been in California for about 180 years." To underscore this, she quoted photographer Edward Curtis: "By the time Americans got to California, they had perfected genocide." Corine was naming a hard truth. By the time U.S. settlers arrived in California, practices of Indigenous displacement and violence were no longer improvised responses to resistance. They had become fully systematized through law, policy, and state-backed force. Massacres were often organized and sanctioned by state authorities. Laws enabled forced removals, indenture, and land theft. This wasn’t incidental. It was policy. The Gold Rush began in 1848, statehood followed in 1850, and what came with it was devastating. All this happened in the span of a few generations. Compared to the thousands of years Indigenous people have lived here, it is recent history. [1]
It may sound harsh, but it is not an exaggeration. The period from 1846 to the 1870s saw state-sanctioned massacres, organized militia campaigns, and laws that enabled forced labor and child slavery. The Indigenous population of California fell from about 150,000 to fewer than 30,000 within a single generation. That is genocide, and it happened here. This is not ancient history. It unfolded rapidly and within the reach of living memory. And it mirrors what has been done to the land itself. The industrial worldview treats the land not as kin or community, but as scenery or resource. It is seen as something outside of us, something to dominate and extract from. Corine’s words ask us to see differently. The land is not separate from us. It is alive. It is family. When we understand that, the call to repair and reconnect becomes not just urgent, but deeply personal.
Equally important was what Corine said about fire. "Our creation story is fire," she told us. "If you don't like fire, you're living in the wrong state." That might sound provocative, but it reflects a deep cultural and ecological truth. Indigenous communities across California have practiced cultural burning for thousands of years to promote the health of plants, prevent large-scale disasters, and maintain habitat for food and medicine.
That practice was interrupted, sometimes outlawed, by settler governments that didn't understand or value it. "They wouldn't let us burn," she said. And in doing so, they made the land more vulnerable. Today, many land managers are beginning to acknowledge what Indigenous people have always known: fire is not the enemy. Misuse and suppression of fire are the real problems.
Corine also called out the environmental damage caused by species that were allowed to dominate under settler management. She called fir trees "dynamite," and warned that firs and pines are extraordinarily thirsty. Densely packed firs strain water tables, outcompete native oaks and plants, and create dangerous fuel loads. Her call to action was simple: go outside, find a young pine or fir under two feet tall, and pull it out. This isn't a call to be destructive. Instead, she is encouraging us to bring a sensible balance back to the landscapes we inhabit.
That kind of tangible, hands-on action is what made Corine's talk more than just a lesson. It was an invitation. And not just to do something small once, but to make a real commitment. This wasn’t a call for charity or allyship. It was a call to responsibility, to reconnect with the place we live in, not as guests or invaders, but as people who belong here and owe care to this land and its history.
She made this point clearly. "You live here now. When you buy a house and move in, you don't stop cleaning. If you make a mess, you have to clean it up. If you are stewarding land, you have to take care of it." There’s no neutrality here. Living on Cobb Mountain means you’re already part of a larger ecological and cultural story. The question is whether we’re willing to learn from those who have tended this land far longer than we have.
Corine’s message was about responsibility. A responsibility that is shared, practical, and rooted in place. She spoke clearly and directly about what it means to live here and care for the land in a way that honors its history and its future. "Being kings and queens in your own land is not what it’s cracked up to be," she said. Corine was naming a pattern where settler culture often treats land as a personal kingdom, something to be ruled, reshaped, or extracted from. She was challenging that mindset and reminding us that real connection to place is not about dominion. It's about stewardship. "We have to have responsibility."
Now the question is ours. Can we begin to see with new eyes? Are we ready to let go of habits that harm and start practicing care that heals?
[1] Edward Curtis was a well-known American photographer and ethnographer best known for his extensive documentation of Native American peoples in the early 20th century. While some of his work has been criticized for romanticizing or staging Native life, his comment as quoted by Corine underscores the rapid and violent destruction inflicted on Native communities in California. In 2019, Governor Newsom formally apologized for the atrocities committed against California Native Americans during the early days of statehood, characterizing the state's treatment of its indigenous people as genocide.
About the Cobb Mountain Area Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP)
Drafting a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is a collaborative effort by local communities, government, and tribal partners to reduce wildfire risk. These plans focus on protecting people, homes, businesses, and other valuable assets from wildfires within a defined area. CWPPs can help communities access funding for wildfire prevention and mitigation projects.
The Cobb Mountain Area CWPP will be all of that and also aims towards the longer term goal of Cobb becoming a fully fire-adapted ecosystem and fire-adapted culture. This approach recognizes that our local environment is inherently associated with fire and that the human relationship with fire has been successfully managed by people in this area over thousands of years. Thus our new Cobb Mountain CWPP will also look closely at traditional fire practices and explore how our community can build a modern local culture that can live successfully in a fire-adapted landscape. Our new local CWPP will build on the Countywide CWPP adopted in 2023 and will take a much more detailed look at our Cobb area, outlining specific actions we can take to reduce wildfire risk and promote long term forest health.
About the Cobb Area Council Forest Stewardship Committee
Following the Valley Fire, the Cobb Area Council (CAC) was established in 2016, as a formal municipal advisory council to the Lake County Board of Supervisors. The CAC is thereby authorized to represent our community to various other government, organizational and institutional bodies. In 2022, the CAC established the Forest Stewardship Committee to specifically address issues of forest health and fire adaptation. The Committee, open to all Cobb residents, has many members with extensive experience managing forest lands in the Cobb Mountain area. It meets monthly on the last Friday of the month at the Loch Lomond firehouse.
How you can participate in making the Cobb Area “Fire-Adapted”
Do you live in one of the Cobb Area subdivisions developments, or in another area with a cluster of at least 8 homes nearby? Then a good way to learn and get help is to join your neighborhood Firewise Community®. If your neighborhood does not yet have a Firewise Community, contact SSCRA to find out how to start one. If you have larger forest acreage, we invite you to participate actively in the CAC Forest Stewardship Committee. All residents are invited to look out for workshops on forest management that will be offered through the rest of the year.