Wildfire & Rural Community Resilience Solutions Roundtable
December 17, 2026 • 1-4 p.m. PT / 2-5 p.m. MT
Live via Zoom • Free • Registration now open!
Across the rural West, wildfire is part of life, and so is the work of living with it. Small towns, ranching communities, tribal nations, and island communities are finding ways to prepare, respond, and recover. This WeCAN Solutions Roundtable will bring those stories together so we can learn from one another.
Wildfire resilience is a continuous effort with connected parts. What communities do before a fire can shape what happens when fire arrives, and both can shape post-fire recovery. We’ll explore community-rooted stories from across that arc.
You'll come away with a shared understanding of wildfire risk and the language to talk about it, practical ideas you can adapt in your community, and connections with neighbors, fire professionals, planners, and community leaders across the region who are working on the same questions.
Register Today!
The Solutions Roundtable is free and open to anyone who's interested in attending. Our focus is on rural communities and small towns across the Western U.S. and Pacific territories, but all are welcome to join.
.jpeg)
More about the roundtable
The roundtable program will include:
-
A keynote from Jonathan Bruno, CEO of Coalitions & Collaboratives and a longtime fire responder who serves on incident management teams. Jonathan will set out a common picture of wildfire risk in the West: a shared language for talking about it, the impacts, and specific steps communities can take to protect themselves.
-
Six solution stories from rural communities that have done the work before, during, and after fire. You'll hear from neighbors and homeowner groups, fire chiefs and planners, and the nonprofits that help hold communities together, with examples of what they tried, what they learned, and what they'd do differently.
-
Peer learning and discussion with roundtable speakers and participants from rural communities and supporting organizations across the western U.S. and Pacific island territories.
About keynote speaker, Jonathan Bruno
Jonathan Bruno leads Coalitions & Collaboratives (COCO), a national nonprofit that works with communities, agencies, and local partners to build wildfire resilience from the ground up. He is the founder and national lead of the interagency Community Mitigation Assistance Teams (CMAT), and a founding board member and past chair of Fire Adapted Colorado.
He started out as a field technician with the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, working alongside volunteers and residents in the Hayman Fire area. He rose to COO there, building a forestry program that treated about 1,000 acres of fuels a year and fielded an eight-person wildland fire crew.
Over more than 25 years in emergency services, as a wildland firefighter, burn boss, and search and rescue safety officer, his work has spanned the full arc of fire: preparedness, response, forest health, and post-disaster restoration. He is a White House Champion of Change, received the 2015 Wildfire Mitigation Award, and holds an MPA from the University of Colorado. Jonathan and his wife, Jennifer, live near Gunnison, where they enjoy the woods and being grandparents.
Stay tuned... we will add our Solution Stories speakers here soon!
Solution Stories are the heart and soul of Solutions Roundtables, and we'll be announcing them as they are confirmed! These short presentations offer concrete examples of how rural communities are approaching wildfire from preparation and mitigation through response and recovery. You'll hear what's working, what we are learning along the way, and how you could adapt this to your own community.
Sponsors
Co-hosted by the Western Community Assessment Network (WeCAN), the Western Rural Development Center (WRDC) and Coalitions & Collaboratives (CoCo). Together, we are committed to bringing rural leaders, organizations, and residents together to share practical solutions and strengthen communities across the West.
