Our Mission
DFSC’s role in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties is to serve as a catalyst for bringing together people, agencies, and the means to substantially reduce the impact of wildland fire on our communities.
While we can’t stop another devastating wildfire from occurring in our communities, we can help our communities prepare for a wildfire event. Our goal is to reduce potential damage and speed recovery.
Our Organization
The Diablo Firesafe Council Board of Directors is responsible for creating the future of the council. The Board provides policy and leadership to the organization to ensure DFSC fulfills its mission. We are always looking for dedicated people with unique expertise. Please contact us to find out more about joining the board!
Our Team
Holly Million, Executive Director
Holly leads DFSC with deep knowledge of nonprofit management, fundraising, communications, and partnership-building. She has been executive director, director of development, fundraising consultant, and board member for scores of organizations throughout her career.
An 18-year resident of Oakland’s Wildland-Urban Interface, Holly is intimately familiar with the value DFSC’s mission.
Sheryl Drinkwater, President
Sheryl assists agencies and Firewise communities develop home hardening programs. In the last several years, she has presented to cities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties to educate residents on actions they can take to protect their homes from wildfire. Sheryl has wildfire mitigation certificates issued by the NFPA and the LA Chapter of the USGBC.
Sheryl is also a licensed architect with over 25 years of experience leading residential and commercial projects from preliminary design to construction management. Her work includes architectural design, building technologies research, design team management, contract writing, project management, planning, and building code analysis.
Sheryl has served as a building safety evaluator for the Cal OES Safety Assessment Program since 2015, and has deployed to Sonoma County in 2017, and to Paradise, CA in 2018. While a group leader during the Camp Fire deployment she made the decision to dive into the structure-hardening world and began, in earnest, her training as a home hardening specialist.
Jeff Isaacs, Vice-President
Jeff Isaacs has over 30-years’ experience in the fire service field. He began his career in 1991 as a volunteer firefighter for the Mariposa County Fire Department. In 1993, he was hired as a seasonal firefighter with CAL FIRE where he continued to work for the next 20 plus years. During his long tenure with CAL FIRE, he worked as a Firefighter/Paramedic, Engineer Paramedic, Fire Captain and Battalion Chief. Jeff promoted to Assistant Chief where he helped create CAL FIRE’s Land Use Planning Program. Jeff was assigned to CAL FIREs Southern Region Office where he managed the Land Use Planning, Pre-Fire Engineering and SRA Fee Programs.
Jeff Joined MOFD in September of 2019 as Fuel Mitigation Manager promoting to Fire Marshal in January of 2020. Jeff is responsible for all exterior hazard abetment inspection, plan review, public education and code adoption and violation enforcement operations for the Moraga Orinda Fire District. Jeff is a member of the Nor Cal Fire Prevention Officers Association and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He has an A.S. Degree in Fire Science, and he holds numerous State Fire Marshal certifications and Fire line qualifications. Jeff served for a total of fourteen years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and Navy Reserve.
Rosemary Chang, Treasurer
Rosemary is a Doctor of Applied Mathematics with MS from New York University and PhD from Brown University. She has extensive experience in technical, design, and engineering roles for Sandia National Laboratories, Control Data Corporation, Silicon Graphics, and VP of Engineering at Coastcom prior to retiring in 2005.
She has served on the Sunol Citizens’ Advisory Council and led the Sunol Septic Work Group. In addition to the Diablo Firesafe Council, Rosemary currently serves on the boards of the Sunol Fire Safe Coalition and Livermore Valley Opera.
Lincoln Casimere
Lincoln Casimere serves as Emergency Preparedness Manager for the Alameda County Fire Department (ACFD). For five years, his work has centered on the intersection of emergency management, training and education, outreach messaging, and community engagement. Lincoln has professional experience in organizational development and evaluation, health equity, business continuity, and project management.
Lincoln works passionately to incorporate Community Resilience Theory - the focus on incorporating equity and social justice considerations in preparedness communication, planning, and response – into his responsibilities at the ACFD. This focus has led Lincoln to become a graduate of the FEMA National Association of Emergency Management Advanced Academy, as well as serve as the Vice President of the Alameda County Emergency Management Association.
Ra Criscitello, Secretary
Ra Criscitiello, Esq. grew up in New England and now lives in El Sobrante. She works for a healthcare workers labor union and is also passionate about wildfire mitigation, especially goat grazing on steep hillsides in the wildland urban interface.
Ra was inspired to join the DFSC board after she and her neighbors received a DFSC cost-sharing fuel-reduction grant, which allowed a significant area of the El Sobrante hills to reduce fuel loads using a large goat herd. Ra also serves as Secretary of the West Contra Costa Fire Safe Council.
Leslie Kirkorian
Leslie grew up in Minnesota and Connecticut. She worked for three years in New York City at an investment advisory service then in 1976 she helped to relocate the office to the west coast. In 1979 she went to work on the Institutional Trading Desk at Smith Barney in San Francisco. Leslie and her husband have lived and raised their family in Lafayette, CA for the past 38 years.
Living in the wildland urban interface (WUI) inspired Leslie to apply to Diablo Firesafe Council’s (DFSC) Partners in Wildfire Prevention Cost-share Program. During the grant work in Hunsaker Canyon she joined the DFSC then worked with her neighbors to organize into a Firewise Community in August of 2022.
Patrick McIntyre
Patrick McIntyre is a Fire Captain for the East Bay Regional Park District. He contributes invaluable experience as a fire reduction specialist and Park Supervisor in the East Bay wildland-urban interface.
Tom Gandesbery
Tom worked for over three decades in land conservation and environmental protection. Tom majored in biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work at the California Department of Health Services and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board included groundwater remediation and contaminated sediment management. After a decade of enforcing environmental laws, he went to the State Coastal Conservancy to work on the completion of the 2600-acre Hamilton Wetland Restoration Project, located near Novato in Marin County. He later worked on the Central Coast, primarily on coastal public access and river restoration projects. From 2019 to 2023, Tom helped manage the agency’s new wildfire resilience grant program which included working closely with local government and nonprofits to tackle a range of forest and wildfire challenges.
Ben Weise
Ben Weise is the Agriculture Conservation Manager at Contra Costa Resource Conservation District and has worked at CCRCD since January 2017. Ben leads the Agriculture Conservation Team at CCRCD, working with farmers, ranchers, urban growers, and other landowners to address and improve natural resources on their properties. Contra Costa RCD Is a non-regulatory special district in Contra Costa County that works to facilitate the conservation of natural resource by partnering with governments, non-profits, and private citizens to achieve greater conservation.
Joelle Fraser, Cost-Share Program Coordinator
Joelle Joins the Diablo Firesafe Council as the Cost-Share Program Coordinator after over 25 years of working in the education industry. She also serves as the Firewise Lead for the Oakland Firesafe Council. As Firewise lead, Joelle works with Oakland neighborhood organizations to promote the adoption of the National Fire Prevention Association’s (NFPA) Firewise USA® program. Joelle holds wildfire mitigation certificates issued from the US Forest Service, NFPA, and the LA Chapter of the USGBC.
Ciara Wood
Ciara Wood has been a dedicated member of DFSC for many years. She is an active leader of her Kensington neighborhood fire safety group, as well as a former member of the Kensington Community Council and Kensington Police Protection and Community Services District boards. She helped create a master plan for Kensington Park, and she also taught drama at El Cerrito High School.
Matt Thau
Matt Thau is a Battalion Chief with the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department (LPFD) where he has worked for almost 20 years. He worked for CAL FIRE for 7 Fire Seasons prior to LPFD. Matt is passionate about wildland fire control and is on CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 1 in Plans. Matt teaches many NWCG classes for LPFD and surrounding agencies and is excited to be a part of the Diablo Firesafe Council Advisory Board.
Chase Beckman
Chase is a Fire Marshall and Battalion Chief for the El Cerrito-Kensington Fire Department. Prior to serving El Cerrito, he was a Captain for Cal Fire’s Northern Region and worked in the Land Use Planning Department. Chase lives in Martinez with his wife and three children.