Greenbelt Alliance and partners are embarking on a multi-year engagement process in Southwest Santa Rosa—a priority Resilience Hotspot—to boost community preparedness to extreme heat!
Vulnerability to extreme heat and wildfires as a result of large areas of paved surfaces, sparse tree canopy, and fewer homes with air conditioning, makes Southwest Santa Rosa a critical Bay Area Resilience Hotspot.
As climate change impacts worsen, communities will be more frequently exposed to more hot days and warm nights. The size and severity of wildfires have increased across Sonoma County in recent years. Wildfire smoke, accompanied by an increase in extreme heat days, has negatively impacted the health and well-being of residents, particularly those who work outside.
Greenbelt Alliance is joining forces with Santa-Rosa-based Latino Service Providers (LSP) to develop a community roadmap for extreme heat resilience and empower local leaders and existing service networks to educate and inform the community about heat risks, emergency response, and culturally-appropriate resources.
Conducted over a multi-year engagement process, the project is made possible by the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.
The HEAT Action Plan will engage the communities most impacted by extreme heat in Southwest Santa Rosa to identify shared priorities and uplift community knowledge. The plan fosters collaboration between community-based organizations, residents, and the public sector in planning for resilience to climate hazards.
In September 2025, we launched a 9-month course with LSP to engage thirteen Southwest Santa Rosa “Climate Impact Innovators” in skill-building workshops focused on increasing their understanding of the science behind extreme heat, the impacts of extreme heat in their local neighborhood, and supporting the development of the policies and actions for the Plan.
Header photo by Karl Nielsen/Greenbelt Alliance
The future we want to build in Marin connects housing and climate solutions. Read more.
Greenbelt Alliance proudly endorses Measure B and encourages voters across Marin and Sonoma counties to vote YES on the June ballot.
At another successful Sonoma Luncheon, supporters in the North Bay raised funds for wildfire and heat solutions that improve climate resilience in the Bay Area.
