Chris Anthony
CEO
FireWERX
Chris Anthony is the Founder & CEO of FireWERX, where he leads a global nonprofit dedicated to accelerating innovation and empowering the Firefighter to end the wildfire crisis. FireWERX supports Fire Innovation Units (FIUs) and connects them to the broader Wildfire Innovation Ecosystem of technologists, funders, researchers, academics, and policy experts — accelerating promising solutions that meet agency-defined needs through structured Pilot-to-Scale Pathways to adoption.
Prior to FireWERX, Chris was a fire service executive with nearly 30 years of experience across resource management, fire protection, fire prevention, law enforcement, administrative, and executive leadership roles, giving him a uniquely comprehensive, end-to-end understanding of the fire service enterprise. He concluded his public service career in 2023 as Chief Deputy Director of CAL FIRE. In that role, he helped guide statewide wildfire suppression, prevention, cooperative fire protection, and resource management during an era of unprecedented fire behavior and community impact. During his career, Chris worked across programmatic areas to ensure the successful implementation of major investments by the Administration and Legislature, investments that expanded CAL FIRE to more than 12,000 employees and a budget exceeding $4 billion to address the growing scale, severity, and complexity of wildfire in California.
Much of Chris’s work has involved translating between worlds - from frontline operations to executive management and legislative engagement. Chris credits his success to active coordination between federal, state, local, tribal, utility, and non-profit partners. He is well-regarded for a collaborative leadership style, the ability to navigate complex policy, budgetary, and interagency environments, and for understanding how decisions made upstream affect firefighters and communities downstream.
Chris is now focused on closing the long-standing gap between innovation and adoption across the Wildfire Innovation Ecosystem. FireWERX begins with end-user innovation needs and the operational realities of firefighters and wildfire agencies. Through FireWERX, Chris is supporting the development of Fire Innovation Units - dedicated innovation programs embedded within fire agencies - and working with Ecosystem Partners to build durable Pilot-to-Scale Pathways that move promising solutions beyond pilots and into sustained operational use. Chris is a Senior Fellow at the University of California San Diego’s Societal Computing and Innovation Lab and serves on the board of Earth Fire Alliance. He is a Registered Professional Forester, an honorably retired California Peace Officer, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from the University of California, Berkeley.
Prior to FireWERX, Chris was a fire service executive with nearly 30 years of experience across resource management, fire protection, fire prevention, law enforcement, administrative, and executive leadership roles, giving him a uniquely comprehensive, end-to-end understanding of the fire service enterprise. He concluded his public service career in 2023 as Chief Deputy Director of CAL FIRE. In that role, he helped guide statewide wildfire suppression, prevention, cooperative fire protection, and resource management during an era of unprecedented fire behavior and community impact. During his career, Chris worked across programmatic areas to ensure the successful implementation of major investments by the Administration and Legislature, investments that expanded CAL FIRE to more than 12,000 employees and a budget exceeding $4 billion to address the growing scale, severity, and complexity of wildfire in California.
Much of Chris’s work has involved translating between worlds - from frontline operations to executive management and legislative engagement. Chris credits his success to active coordination between federal, state, local, tribal, utility, and non-profit partners. He is well-regarded for a collaborative leadership style, the ability to navigate complex policy, budgetary, and interagency environments, and for understanding how decisions made upstream affect firefighters and communities downstream.
Chris is now focused on closing the long-standing gap between innovation and adoption across the Wildfire Innovation Ecosystem. FireWERX begins with end-user innovation needs and the operational realities of firefighters and wildfire agencies. Through FireWERX, Chris is supporting the development of Fire Innovation Units - dedicated innovation programs embedded within fire agencies - and working with Ecosystem Partners to build durable Pilot-to-Scale Pathways that move promising solutions beyond pilots and into sustained operational use. Chris is a Senior Fellow at the University of California San Diego’s Societal Computing and Innovation Lab and serves on the board of Earth Fire Alliance. He is a Registered Professional Forester, an honorably retired California Peace Officer, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from the University of California, Berkeley.
