Bruce Turbeville
Chairman, Fire Safe Council

Prior to retirement, Turbeville was CDF's Public Education Officer. In that role, he created and managed the public education program, and he provided hands-on technical assistance and staff direction to CDF's field personnel on all departmental fire prevention and loss reduction public education programs.

During his 14 years as Public Education Officer, Turbeville created and spearheaded numerous fire prevention education programs. Turbeville's award-winning and nationally recognized "Fire Safe Inside and Out" program has been adopted for use by contract counties, local and federal fire agencies. It has aired on cable television stations throughout California as a public service. Turbeville also formed several public-private partnerships using "Fire Safe Inside & Out" to further meet the Department's fire prevention education objectives. For example, the California Association of Nurserymen distributed "Fire Safe Inside and Out" videos and brochures to all nurseries in Laguna, Malibu and Altadena following California's1993 firestorms. And the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction funded a full-page insert in USA TODAY using artwork and information from "Fire Safe Inside and Out."

Building upon the success of "Fire Safe Inside and Out," Turbeville conceived of a unique organization to grow private sector support of fire prevention education initiatives. In 1993, he formed the Fire Safe Council, a coalition of public- and private-sector organizations whose mission is to preserve California's natural and manmade resources by mobilizing all Californians to make their homes, neighborhoods and communities fire safe.

Turbeville has served as Chairman of the Fire Safe Council since its inception, and continues to do so. In this role, he has forged partnerships for fire safety with more than 50 diverse organizations, including insurance, real estate, landscape, utility, water, environmental, media, firefighting, agriculture, forestry, governmental organizations and more. The Council has contributed expertise, marketing, publicity and distribution services to fire prevention programs such as "Fire Safe Landscaping"; CDF's children's fire education CD-ROM conceived by Turbeville, "Smokey & Me"; "The Burning Season" documentary by The Weather Channel and CDF; "Fire Safe Inside & Out"; public service announcements and public service advertisements.

In addition under Turbeville's leadership, the Council created and funded the "Fire Safe California Community Action Kit." The kit supports fire and resource management strategies to create fire safe communities through stakeholder involvement and prefire management. The kit details laws governing development of wildland areas, including PRC 4290 and 4291. More than 1,500 kits have been distributed to homeowner associations, city and county officials and business leaders throughout the state. The kit also is being adopted in Oregon and Colorado.

The Council's support for fire safety is so strong that individual members have lobbied on behalf of CDF's prefire initiative to encourage legislative approval of program funding.

A nationally recognized innovator of government-led public-private partnerships, Turbeville has provided technical expertise in formation of local councils. With his assistance, more than 90 local fire safe councils have formed in California. In addition, at least four other states have adopted the Fire Safe Council model. The Fire Safe Council has been recognized by the Western Governor's Association as a model program, and it has been exported to Australia and Russia.

Turbeville's innovations in developing alternative funding for fire prevention, and risk and hazard reduction programs generated more than $500,000 in private sector in-kind and monetary support. His partnership-building successes made Turbeville CDF's primary contact for private corporate and organizational fire prevention, and hazard and risk reduction programs. In addition, he was the Department's primary contact with other states and fire agencies for similar programs.

He is equally committed to governmental partnerships. Turbeville was a member of several government cooperative groups, including the California Interagency Fire Prevention Committee, California State Fire Marshal's Public Education Advisory Committee, CalTrans Public Advisory Committee on Highway Landscaping, Public Utilities Subcommittee on Public Education and the Fire Strategies Committee. Through his participation on these bodies, Turbeville evaluated public education programs relating to fire safety being developed by other agencies, among other duties.

Within CDF, Turbeville managed the Department's $250,000 per year multi-media program. He directed the efforts of a private sector contractor to develop and implement the Department's mass media public education program. In addition to a yearly multi-media program plan, Turbeville directed the Department's emergency fire prevention educational outreach activities in response to wildfire.

Turbeville worked with the State Fire Marshal's staff to develop the expanded role of public education due to the CDF-Fire Marshal's Office merger. He also addressed public administration and personnel management within the Department by developing a procedure to integrate CDF's Volunteers in Prevention (VIP) program with the Project Learning Tree program. Turbeville played a key role in CDF's VIP program through training courses, providing technical guidance and other activities.

Turbeville represented the Department's interests in the Smokey Bear Program with the USDA Forest Service's Washington, D.C., office. Also representing the Department's interests on a federal level, Turbeville developed a proposal that earned a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Through the FEMA grant, Turbeville managed development of a community college-level course on fire prevention for continuing certification for various industry professionals, including real estate, landscape, building and insurance.

He was a member of the committee that conceived, formed and created the multi-agency Tahoe ReGreen program to address forest health, insect and disease control, and fire safety in the Tahoe Basin.

Turbeville was also a member of the primary committee that developed and implemented the June 1997 California Under Fire Partnership Summit. Through his understanding of public-private and intergovernmental partnerships, firefighting techniques, ecosystem health, fire prevention, and risk reduction, he contributed to the Summit's goal of forming partnerships to create fire safe communities in California. He created and moderated a panel discussion of public-private partnerships, encouraged use of fire safety materials created by CDF and the Fire Safe Council, generated media coverage and media understanding of the Summit's ecosystem health and fire safety issues, and facilitated partnerships between members of the Fire Safe Council and local communities. As a result of the Summit, the Alliance for a Fire Safe California was formed to overcome institutional barriers to creating a Fire Safe California. The Fire Safe Council was among the following signatory members of the Alliance: the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, California State Fire Marshal's Office and Los Angeles County Fire Department (representing all local fire agencies).

Under his leadership, the Fire Safe Council received a Bronze Smokey Bear Award of national recognition for outstanding statewide fire prevention program. The national Smokey Bear Awards, sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters, and The Advertising Council, are designed to recognize organizations or individuals for outstanding service in wildfire prevention

The Fire Safe Council also was honored by the Public Relations Society of America for the "El Fuego" media relations and public education campaign, developed to educate homeowners about the need to prepare for the fire season following El Niño. "El Fuego" won the top award, Best of Show, surpassing more than 100 other corporate, governmental and organizational public outreach programs in 1998.

Turbeville is a member of the governing board for the California Community Forests Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed to support projects aimed at enhancing community forests by providing administrative and financial assistance to groups concerned about sustaining their forests in both urban and rural settings.

Turbeville is a winner of the Silver Smokey Bear Award. An award-winning photographer, three of Turbeville's photographs have appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.