Comments were recorded on large-paper-colored-markers at the October 29, 2007 meeting and from a smaller meeting on October 30, 2007 following the San Diego Partners for Biodiversity meeting.  The typed notes (click here to download the document) include the following themes:

• Restructure SDFRN to focus on science and education, no longer following the intent or process to make policy statements
• Learn about the progression and effects of the 2007 wildfires, including impacts to sensitive species and to those areas also burned in the 2003 wildfires
• Concerns about post-fire erosion and reseeding practices
• Recognize the importance of media relationships and clear messages, especially “so what” for the public
• Value of public engagement through public education, school children’s experiences with post-fire recovery, volunteer projects, citizen science monitoring, and more
• Interaction of drought, wildfire, future climate changes, and development patterns on local ecosystems

What’s different, between the 2007 and 2003 wildfires? 

• The 2007 community impact was more extensive and exhausting, with 500,000 evacuated in this natural disaster; businesses and schools closed; and some still rebuilding from 2003.  Emphasis on ignition-resistant houses, brush reduction codes, and public education since 2003 likely limited property losses, but structures were lost at the head of unstoppable firestorms, and there are calls for clearing brush everywhere.  
• Many special places are now forever different.  Sugar and coulter pines at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park are gone—and the mountain is now dominated by oaks and ceanothus.  The Sweetwater Creek native trout population was extirpated in the Cedar Fire, and the last native trout population is threatened in Pauma Creek. 
• Coastal sage scrub will not regenerate in some areas that burned in both 2003 and 2007, as the seed source and/or resprouting capacity in the young plants was insufficient for robust regeneration and there is abundance of highly-successful invasive plant seeds ready to dominate those land areas in the spring. 
• Climate changes are likely to increase local droughts and extreme weather events, that both lead to higher wildfire severity.