"Most people think we're here to cut trees," Casey says. "Really, we're here to make decisions. Every cut changes what happens after the next one."
Before
The
Fire
How Casey Pernett prepares California's hillsides ahead of summer
By the time most of Santa Barbara is settling into the workday, Casey Pernett is already high in the hills above town. His diesel truck climbs narrow roads with a wood chipper in tow, heading toward another property where neighborhoods give way to dense native brush, oak woodlands, and steep canyons.
Before the day begins to warm, chainsaws are already running as his crew works its way across another overgrown hillside with one thing California always seems to have too much of: fuel.
"It's gonna be another hot one today," Casey says, wiping sweat from his forehead before carefully cutting a fallen oak into manageable sections. Every cut is deliberate. Nothing is rushed.
Prior to starting Frontcountry Tree Care, Casey spent more than a decade on a U.S. Forest Service Interagency Hotshot crew, one of the nation's elite wildland firefighting teams that tackles some of the country's most difficult fires in steep, remote terrain. After leaving the Forest Service, he wasn't entirely sure what came next.
He began taking on small jobs with little more than a chainsaw and a weed trimmer, gradually building a solid reputation as a tree faller. Around the same time his daughter was born, the work began to grow. One piece of equipment led to another, then a contractor's license, and eventually started a vegetation management company of his own.
"Most people think we're here to cut trees," Casey says. "Really, we're here to make decisions. Every cut changes what happens after the next one."
Just as important are the trees that stay. Healthy oaks are preserved whenever possible, while the vegetation beneath them is thinned to reduce ladder fuels. Casey spends as much time deciding what to leave as what to remove. The goal isn't to clear the landscape—it's to make it more resilient when the next wildfire comes.
Years spent on a Hotshot crew have a way of changing how someone reads a hillside. What most people see as brush and trees, Casey sees fuel loading, ladder fuels, prevailing winds, topography, and escape routes. Those habits never really leave.
"Fire's going to do what it wants to do," he explains. "What we can change is what it has to work with."
His crew moves steadily across the hillside without much conversation. Most of them came from the same world Casey did, where communication is often reduced to a glance or a hand signal. Brush is gathered before it's chipped. Larger material is bucked, stacked, and moved safely downhill. The chipper hums for most of the afternoon, filling the covered bed of the truck with fresh wood chips that will eventually find a second life as mulch. Watching them work, it's obvious the rhythm was built long before this crew ever came together.
Casey smiles when the conversation turns to equipment. Much of what he owns—including the truck, chipper, and many of the tools his crew relies on—came from another tree contractor who was retiring. The equipment wasn't new, but it had already proven itself.
"I've never been interested in replacing things just because they're old," he says. "If it's built well and you take care of it, it'll usually take care of you."
That same philosophy carries through everything he buys for the business, from chainsaws and hand tools to the clothing his crew wears. Investing in quality equipment costs more upfront, but dependable gear lasts longer, performs better, and ultimately saves money over time. Durability and function mattered far more to Casey than trends or unnecessary features.
Late in the afternoon, the last of the saws are loaded back into the truck. Fuel cans are strapped down, tools stowed away, and another section of hillside has been prepared for the seasons ahead. To someone driving past, very little appears to have changed. The oaks are still standing, the canyons remain shaded, and the landscape still looks unmistakably Californian.
Hidden beneath that familiar view is something easily overlooked. There's less fuel connecting the ground to the canopy, better access for firefighters if they're ever needed, and one more hillside that offers a fire fewer opportunities to build momentum.
Before climbing into the truck, Casey pauses for one last look across the slope, the same way we'd watched him do throughout the day.
"We just try to give people a better chance,” he says.
The truck rolls back down the hill, the crew heads home, and tomorrow morning they'll be on another hillside that most people will never think twice about.
"I've never been interested in replacing things just because they're old," he says. "If it's built well and you take care of it, it'll usually take care of you."
