SSCRA June News: 2nd Annual Cobb Forest & Fire Summit, The Cobb Resilience Movement, Kelsey Creek Cleanup
- Shasta McBride
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Calendar of 2026 Upcoming Events
July 3rd: Cobb Forest Stewardship Committee of the Cobb Area Council, public invited
Jul 11: 2nd annual Cobb Forest & Fire Summit, RSVP
July 18: Cobb Watershed Creek Workshop #1, Mandala Springs, RSVP
August 29: 6th Annual Blackberry COBBler Festival
September 19: Cobb Watershed Creek Workshop #2 at Boggs Forest - open to the public, Saturday
Register for the 2nd Annual Cobb Forest & Fire Summit
RSVP for the summit here.If you are interested in volunteering for this one day event, please write to us at admin@sscra.org. Lunch is provided, and it's a fun way to connect with the local community. We need a few more volunteers, and thank you to those who already signed up!
We are excited to host the 2nd annual Cobb Forest Summit on Saturday, July 11th, at The Little Red Schoolhouse. The Cobb Forest Summit will connect local leaders with the community to find ways to build fire resilience and preparedness. Last year over 100 people attended the all day event. This year, we are excited to host local booths and roundtable discussions where the local Cobb community can use their voices to collaborate on ideas for community wildfire protection. We look forward to seeing you there! Lunch, coffee, drinks, and snacks are provided.
The Cobb Resilience Movement: Three Paths, One Purpose
At SSCRA, we share a mantra that bridges our modern challenges with the ancient wisdom of our partners: Paperwork will satisfy the insurance companies, but only community stewardship will satisfy the land.
True resilience isn't a single massive project; it is an ongoing, daily attitude and practical approach that everyone who lives here has a role in making happen. Firewise Communities and Wildfire Protection Plans are modern frameworks that can support this responsibility. For the indigenous peoples of the Clear Lake basin, land has never been a 'wilderness' to be feared or left alone. The Kúla-Nápó and Kabé-Nápó and other indigenous peoples didn't just survive the fire season; they shaped it. The ancient truth they have been trying to share is that the land is a home that flourished through active, careful management. By inviting Tribal leadership into our contemporary planning, we aren't checking a box or starting a new campaign. We are simply connecting our modern neighborhood safety goals with a multi-millennial legacy of living with fire.
Whether you have been here for four generations, forty years or four months, there are practical, everyday ways to pass on this tradition of stewardship. Here are three distinct ways to step in and contribute, depending on where your interests lie:
Path 1: The Neighborhood Lead (Firewise USA®)
Our local Firewise Communities are where neighborhood cooperation meets practical protection. This path isn’t just about cutting down trees. In our mountains, the goal is to foster a healthy, pro-growth forest structure and harden homes to naturally withstand wildfire threats.
The Work: Document your volunteer stewardship hours or neighborhood mitigation expenses, such as limbing up oaks or replacing high-flame and high-heat invasive species like Yellow Star Thistle with Naked Buckwheat (Eriogonum nudum).
The "Paperwork" Connection: For generations, our neighbors and communities in Lake County that we have been calling Pomo have recognized that active management—not passive neglect—is what keeps the forest safe and balanced. Every hour you spend clearing overgrowth or maintaining your property creates two kinds of "receipts." The physical work of thinning the understory and clearing dead debris can be your own direct gift back to the land itself. Filing your Individual Homeowner Recording Sheet simply provides the structural "proof of care" that modern systems require to keep our insurance policies viable.
Path 2: The Citizen Scientist (CWPP)
The Cobb Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) will be the hyper-local blueprint for our future with fire, not only systematically focusing the otherwise broad strokes of the countywide Lake County CWPP on our specific ridge lines, neighborhoods, and backyards, but also methodically building an actionable plan.
The Plan will not be a static snapshot to set on a shelf. Preliminary site visits have already confirmed a major challenge: much of the existing data used by government agencies is incorrect, outdated, or not detailed enough. The changes on our mountains since the 2015 Valley Fire show that documented plans need to be a living, adaptive resource that reflect our reality. Our community cannot plan properly if the basis for the plan is wrong. We need local "ground-truthers" to help us map the landscape as it exists today.
The Work: Participate in simple, localized field surveys to track vegetation changes, fuel loads, and ecological health right in your own neighborhood.
The Connection: You don't need a degree in forestry to help. By joining our upcoming Volunteer Trainings, you will learn how to use basic mapping tools to help the community identify assets that we consider high-value together, and track invasive plants. This collective data keeps our community plans accurate, actionable, and ready for vital grant funding.
Path 3: The Watershed Steward (WERP)
Resilience flows through our creeks. The Cobb Watershed Education and Restoration Program (WERP) is where we invest in the "sponge" of our landscape—the soil and water that sustain us all.
The Work: Participate in our upcoming hands-on creek education and restoration workshops—including our Mandala Springs/Kelsey Creek workshop on July 18th and the Boggs Mountain Forest workshop on September 19th.
The Connection: This work moves beyond modern engineering to reinstate a shared responsibility where the land and its people are inseparable. By synthesizing the best of modern riparian science with tribally led treatments under the guidance of our partners like the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians and Middletown Rancheria, we find a more natural path to safety. When we care for the watershed as family, our defenses against drought and fire once again become the beautiful, quiet byproducts of a healthy home.
Step Forward for Cobb’s Future Today
SSCRA is entering an exciting season of growth and transition. Over the past few years, we have established a clear framework for managing project funding and supporting community collaboration. It’s been our job to provide a steady container for the true strength of the Cobb area to step forward with collective energy. Now, we need dedicated individuals to step into leadership roles to help us build on this groundwork and shape what comes next. We are ready to share our experience, support you along the way, and welcome new partners to the table. Whether you are interested in heading up a specific project, joining our board, or simply taking a more active role in the community's success, your time is now.
Sign Up For the Kelsey Creek Cleanup, Mandala Springs, Saturday, July 18th, 10 AM
Come join us on Saturday, July 18th, at Mandala Springs Wellness Center on Bottlerock to help restore the Kelsey Creek watershed. Learn from local ecologists, creek ecology specialists, and tribal land stewards to help restore our watershed. We will volunteer from 10 am - 3 pm, lunch provided, 15 spots available.