A conservation-oriented foundation dedicated to advancing wildfire resilience, ecological stewardship, and place-based understanding of fire-adapted landscapes.
Founded by T7GR, the Foundation operates at the intersection of conservation practice, wildfire ecology, and applied learning. Its work is grounded in the belief that meaningful progress on wildfire requires presence, proximity, and ethical engagement with landscapes during fire season itself.
Forecasting Fire Through the Patterns Behind It
Wildfire is no longer an episodic disturbance. It is a defining ecological force shaping forests, watersheds, biodiversity, and human settlement across the American West and beyond. Yet much of the research, policy, technology development, and conservation planning related to wildfire is conducted far from fire-affected landscapes, often outside the temporal window when fire most strongly influences ecological and social systems.
The Divine Fire Foundation exists to address this gap.
Our purpose is to analyze the terrain, vegetation, and historical burn trends that shape where and how wildfire develops — reading the patterns that precede ignition, not just documenting the fire once it starts. That work depends on direct engagement with fire-adapted landscapes during periods of high to extreme wildfire risk, when those patterns are most visible and context matters most.
Where Our Work Is Focused Right Now
Conservation-Relevant Drone & Sensing Evaluation
Field-based evaluation of drone and environmental sensing technologies operated by qualified third parties, focused on heat mapping, terrain interaction, and environmental conditions in fire-affected landscapes. This contributes to conservation insight and land-management understanding rather than commercial deployment or wildfire response.
Where Wildfire Risk & Vineyard Viability Meet
Ground-level sensor networks read a vineyard block by block, but they can’t see the ridge above it or the fuel load in the ravine behind it. This work looks at where those two data worlds actually converge — aerial terrain and vegetation data layered against existing vineyard sensor feeds — to understand how wildfire risk on the surrounding land could affect fruit value long before flame or smoke ever reaches the vines.
Fire Ecology & Plant-Based Studies
Applied studies examining how different plant communities respond to varying burn intensities and heat exposure, integrating field observation with heat-mapping correlation and post-fire ecological assessment to inform restoration and long-term stewardship.
Fire, Smoke & Operational Adaptation in Wine & Event Spaces
Applied work examining how wineries and event space operators respond to fire and smoke conditions — harvest timing, vineyard practices, smoke exposure monitoring, and guest safety and operational continuity planning, including tools that support real-time decision-making.
Mobile Firefighter Health, Cleansing & Recovery Concepts
Exploratory, non-operational work on mobile concepts supporting firefighter health and exposure reduction, including cleansing and recovery considerations, intended to inform public-benefit solutions without providing emergency response services.
Fire-Season Preparedness for Small Hospitality Operators
Practical guidance and applied learning resources for bed-and-breakfasts and small lodging operators in wildfire-prone regions, focused on guest safety, evacuation readiness, communication protocols, and decision-making during fire season.
Predictive Analytics: Seeing Fire Risk Before It Starts
Precision viticulture and wildfire risk are usually treated as separate disciplines. They’re reading the same land — they just need to be flown, mapped, and layered together.
In-Vineyard Sensor Networks
Weather stations track rainfall, wind, and air pressure. Soil probes read moisture and temperature. Canopy sensors flag plant stress. All of it is point-in-time, block-by-block data.
WingtraOne Drone Mapping
Multispectral and NDVI vegetation imaging, LiDAR terrain and fuel-load scanning, and centimeter-accurate photogrammetry — whole-property, contour-level data the sensors on the ground can’t capture.
A Stronger Position Against Fire, Before It Starts
The goal isn’t just documenting risk after the fact — it’s giving land managers, fire crews, and vineyard operators a earlier, clearer picture of where a fire is likely to start and how it would move, so mitigation and response can be planned ahead of fire season instead of during it.
This Started as Mitigation Work on Love & Luck Ranch
Before the program areas above existed on paper, this was already happening on the ranch’s own acreage — and on the BLM land around it. The drone-and-sensing and fire-ecology work grew directly out of it.
Guided by Principles Shared With Long-Standing Conservation Field Stations
Situated Learning
Understanding wildfire and conservation emerges from proximity to place and season, not abstraction alone.
Non-Intervention
Residents engage as observers, thinkers, and learners. The Foundation does not facilitate access to active fire operations or restricted zones.
Applied Conservation
Time spent at the residency supports work that informs land management, restoration, policy, and public understanding.
Reciprocity With Place
Engagement respects the ecosystems and communities that live with wildfire as a recurring condition.
Safety First
All programming adapts to fire behavior, smoke conditions, and regional advisories.
Conservation & Wildfire-Resilience Work
The Foundation supports individuals and organizations whose work contributes to conservation and wildfire resilience.
- Fire ecologists, environmental scientists, and conservation researchers
- Land managers, restoration practitioners, and prescribed fire professionals
- Policy analysts and planners working on fire-adapted landscapes
- Educators, journalists, and scholars focused on wildfire and land use
- Technologists developing tools in service of conservation outcomes
- Ecological understanding
- Conservation practice
- Responsible land stewardship
- Public benefit
Seasonal, and Always Conditional on Safety
Residencies are offered seasonally, typically from summer through early fall, and are subject to continuous safety assessment. Participant safety is paramount. The Foundation may modify, pause, or suspend residencies in response to:
- Fire behavior
- Smoke and air quality
- Evacuation orders or access restrictions
The Divine Fire Foundation was founded by T7GR, a technology and conservation initiative committed to advancing innovative, ethical approaches to land stewardship and resilience.