Yana Valachovic

Ms. Valachovic is passionate about finding solutions to challenging problems bringing her skills in forestry, natural resources and sociological research, design and mitigation of the built environment for wildfire resilience, as well as her years rooted in County government and community engagement. She is a member of the California Governor’s Wildfire Forest Resilience Task Force and other California state fire policy workgroups. Ms. Valachovic is the co-lead of the Northern California region of the California Fire Science Consortium and is a founding member of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council. She has co-authored papers on fire behavior in California forests and the intersection of fire performance in home and landscape design. She is active in California policy development and has been a technical resource for bioenergy, forest management, home hardening, and improvements to defensible space legislation. She will share her experience from post-fire assessments that have helped craft her vision for adaptation.