The most important piece of climate infrastructure in the American West is a clipboard. It’s carried by a fire inspector walking around a home in the wildland-urban interface, checking for pine needles in the gutters, woodpiles stacked against the siding, and the required 100 feet of defensible space. The findings are scribbled on a paper form, handed to the homeowner, and maybe, eventually, typed into a spreadsheet back at the station. It is a process defined by friction, delay, and a profound lack of data about what actually reduces risk.
Fire Aside, a San Anselmo software company founded in 2020, is betting that replacing that clipboard with an iPad is the first step to building wildfire resilience at scale. Its platform digitizes the entire inspection workflow, from the inspector’s mobile app and photo documentation to a personalized report and action plan for the resident. The company reports its software is now used by over 100 fire agencies, fire safe councils, and homeowners’ associations across 12 states [Fire Aside, retrieved 2026]. For a problem measured in acres burned and homes lost, Fire Aside is selling a new unit of progress: the inspected property.
The Wedge Is the Workflow
The company’s initial wedge was straightforward: make the inspection itself less painful. Before Fire Aside, agencies like the Central Marin Fire Department relied on paper forms for their annual defensible space and home hardening checks [Central Marin Fire Department, retrieved 2026]. The Fire Aside app gives inspectors a customizable digital checklist, the ability to attach photos, and automated generation of a resident report. The value proposition is immediate time savings and better record-keeping for the agency, paired with clearer guidance for the homeowner.
But the real business emerges in what happens after the inspection. The platform helps agencies manage vegetation removal programs, track grant compliance for state and federal funding, and communicate at scale with residents in high-risk zones. It recently added an AI tool for vegetation recognition to aid inspector recommendations [Fire Aside, October 2025]. The goal is to become the operating system for community-scale wildfire mitigation, turning a reactive, incident-driven public service into a proactive, data-informed program.
Traction in the Tinderbox
Fire Aside’s early growth maps neatly onto California’s fire geography. An initial foothold in Marin and Sonoma counties, where 18 of 29 local fire agencies used the platform at the time of its first outside financing, provided a proof of concept [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2023]. From there, it expanded into Colorado, Oregon, and Nevada, and now claims to support millions of high-risk properties across those states [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2023].
Its most concentrated success may be in the Lake Tahoe Basin, where the company says every local fire agency now uses its platform [MT Democrat, retrieved 2026]. A case study there reported that over 81% of residents who used Fire Aside in 2023 credited it with motivating them to remove hazardous materials, and pointed to a 5x increase in prevention actions in other regions [Tahoe Living With Fire, retrieved 2026]. While these are company-cited metrics, they point to the kind of engagement that turns a compliance tool into a resilience driver.
The Team and the Check
The founding team, led by CEO Jason Brooks and President Don Moore, came from data and technology backgrounds rather than firefighting [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2026]. This outsider perspective likely helped them see the workflow inefficiency as a software problem. Their initial outside financing in July 2023 was led by Convective Capital, a venture firm focused exclusively on wildfire and climate resilience, with participation from Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2023]. The round size was not disclosed, but the investor profile is a signal in itself: this is a niche where domain-specific conviction matters more than generic SaaS metrics.
The company has grown to a team of about 15 employees [RocketReach, retrieved 2026] and by October 2025 had created 11 jobs in its San Anselmo headquarters [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2025].
| Role | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Co-Founder & CEO | Jason Brooks | MBA, former Peace Corps volunteer, tech executive background [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2026]. |
| Co-Founder & President | Don Moore | Co-founder role confirmed by investor materials [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2023]. |
| Co-Founder | Matt Osborn | Listed as a co-founder on professional profiles [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. |
The Risks Are in the Renewal Motion
The business model appears to be classic SaaS for government and quasi-governmental agencies, a market known for long sales cycles but sticky contracts once landed. The primary competitive risk isn’t another startup, but inertia. Many fire departments are resource-constrained and may see digitization as a nice-to-have, not a must-have, especially if grant funding for the software dries up. Furthermore, the platform’s effectiveness ultimately depends on resident adoption and action, a variable the software can facilitate but not control.
Fire Aside’s answer to these risks is embedded in its product expansion. By moving beyond inspections into grant management and community program coordination, it increases its utility and becomes harder to displace. The partnership with services like ChipperDay for vegetation removal creates a tangible outcome that agencies can point to [Fire Aside, retrieved 2026]. The bet is that by making mitigation programs more efficient and measurable, Fire Aside doesn’t just sell software, it helps secure the next round of funding for the agency itself.
The Path to a Fire-Resilient Grid
The company’s next twelve months will likely focus on deepening its penetration in existing states and proving expansion into new geographies. A key milestone to watch is whether it can land county or state-level contracts that mandate or subsidize use across multiple jurisdictions, a move that would dramatically accelerate adoption.
Consider the math of scale. If an agency using Fire Aside can inspect 30% more properties per inspector with better data, that’s a straightforward efficiency win. But the climate impact is measured in reduced fuel loads. If the platform helps coordinate the removal of, say, 10,000 tons of dry brush across a county through streamlined chipper programs, that’s potential energy that won’t be released in a megafire. It’s a negative kilowatt-hour, accounted for in chainsaws and chip trucks instead of batteries.
For Fire Aside to become essential, it must beat the incumbent it was built to replace: not another software company, but the three-ring binder and the filing cabinet. It must prove that turning a fragmented, analog process into a connected digital system doesn’t just save time, it saves houses. The early traction in places like Tahoe suggests it’s on the right path, turning clipboard inspections into a data layer for the world’s most flammable neighborhoods.
Sources
- [Fire Aside, retrieved 2026] Fire Aside | Wildfire Resilience Software for Communities & Fire Agencies | https://www.fireaside.com/
- [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2023] MSIV Invests in San Anselmo’s Fire Aside | https://www.msivfund.com/news/marin-sonoma-impact-ventures-invests-in-fire-aside-san-anselmo
- [Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, October 2025] Fire Aside Opens San Anselmo Headquarters | https://www.msivfund.com/news/msiv-portfolio-company-fire-aside-opens-new-san-anselmo-office
- [Fire Aside, October 2025] Partnering for Resiliency: Fire Departments and Tech That Works | https://blog.fireaside.com/blog/partnering-for-resiliency-fire-departments-and-tech-that-works
- [Palo Alto Online, May 2024] It doesn’t have to be rocket science | https://www.paloaltoonline.com/blogs/a-new-shade-of-green/2024/05/04/it-doesnt-have-to-be-rocket-science/
- [Central Marin Fire Department, retrieved 2026] Central Marin Fire Department uses Fire Aside for annual Defensible Space & Home Hardening Inspections | https://www.centralmarinfire.org/fire-aside
- [MT Democrat, retrieved 2026] Disaster Resource Guide 2024: Fire Aside platform offers streamlined defensible space and home hardening process for Tahoe Basin | https://www.mtdemocrat.com/specialpublications/disaster-resource-guide-2024-fire-aside-platform-offers-streamlined-defensible-space-and-home-hardening-process/article_447529e2-43ab-11ef-b01d-079863766c67.html
- [Tahoe Living With Fire, retrieved 2026] First of its kind defensible space software brings significant improvements to the entire Tahoe Basin | https://www.tahoelivingwithfire.com/tfft-press-releases/first-of-its-kind-defensible-space-software-brings-significant-improvements-to-the-entire-tahoe-basin/
- [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, retrieved 2026] Jason Brooks biography | (Source summary)
- [RocketReach, retrieved 2026] Fire Aside Management Team | Org Chart | https://rocketreach.co/fire-aside-management_b438b845c195e69b
- [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Matt Osborn - Co-Founder of LWK Partners and LightWell | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattosborn/