Mendocino County residents are turning the serious business of wildfire preparedness into a lighthearted, community-building game. On May 31, 2026, over thirty members of the Feliz Creek & Road 110 Firewise Community gathered at the Hopland Volunteer Fire Department to play 'Mendocino County Wildfire Resilience,' a board game designed to help people think through evacuation scenarios without the stress of a real emergency.
The game, an adaptation of 'Prototyping Resilience'—created by a team from the University of California, Davis—uses a large map of the Feliz Creek area with road names and evacuation zones. Players start by filling out a worksheet about their real-life fire preparedness, assessing factors like whether they have a written evacuation plan or a packed go-bag.
Scott Cratty, Executive Director of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, noted that some players began with negative points because they lacked these essentials. 'These are things that will give you a head start or be a hindrance,' Cratty explained, adding that factors like the number of pets or household members can slow down an evacuation.
Once players established their starting positions, they rolled a die to advance toward safety, but chance cards introduced realistic obstacles: downed trees, new spot fires, or missing medications in their go-bag. Maria Esser, a GrizzlyCorps fellow with the Fire Safe Council, described a card that forces players to decide whether to warn a neighbor on foot—skipping a turn—if they don't have the neighbor's contact information.
Other cards add 'light public shaming,' as Esser put it, penalizing players with wooden fences attached to their homes.
The game aims to create a low-stakes environment where residents can discuss real vulnerabilities and solutions. At the Hopland event, neighbors identified dangerous road spots where trees narrow the thoroughfare and shared updates on confusing signage between Hopland and McNab Ranch.
Bernadette Byrne, a Firewise Community member, found the game surprisingly impactful: 'The chance cards brought up lots of obstacles, issues, circumstances that you might not be thinking about.'
The game, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, debuts in Mendocino County after its 2024 launch in Marin County. For more information on wildfire preparedness, visit firesafemendocino.org.