The recently relaunched Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force in California announced the release of the “Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire” to expand prescribed burns and cultural burns for forest management and wildfire mitigation.
The strategic plan was developed by state, federal, Tribal and local entities to increase the pace and scale of beneficial fire to 400,000 acres annually across the state through 2025.
“As climate change continues to exacerbate wildfire conditions, we’re bringing federal, state, Tribal and local partners together to more effectively address the scale of this crisis,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). “California is putting in the work to help protect our communities from the devastating impacts of wildfires, build for the long term and safeguard our treasured state for generations to come.”
The strategic plan states while the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) have conducted prescribed burns in previous years, there are still between 10 and 30 million acres in California that would benefit from some form of fuel reduction treatment.
“California cannot completely address the current treatment deficit in the four-year life of this strategic plan. However, the state and its partners can establish a shared framework of policies, capacity, and infrastructure necessary to bring ecosystems into balance in the long term,” the plan states.
The plan would scale up prescribed burning with USFS to treat up to 1 million acres per year by 2025. While CAL FIRE and USFS would treat the majority of acres in the plan, it would also enlist the help of state agencies, range improvement associations, the California Cattlemen’s Association (CCA), California Tribes and cultural fire practitioners.
To expand the pace and scale of prescribed fire activities, the plan calls for establishing a training center to grow, train and diversify the state’s prescribed fire workforce.
It would expand the capacity of the prescribed private workforce, launch an online prescribed fire permitting system to streamline the process, promote the Burn Boss program and establish the Prescribed Fire Claims Fund to reduce liability for private burners.
CCA wrote in its Legislative Bulletin on April 4 that CCA leadership and the Fire Subcommittee worked to provide input to the task force’s prescribed fire work group as it developed the strategic plan.
“As a result, CCA is the only private organization explicitly identified in the strategic plan as a partner in achieving the state’s prescribed fire target,” the bulletin said. “CCA’s Fire Subcommittee will work with interested ranchers to facilitate the deployment of prescribed fire on private lands over the next three years, and CCA will continue to work with CAL FIRE and the Legislature to ensure the use of ‘beneficial fire’ is further expanded beyond 2025.”
The strategic plan also calls for California Tribes, Tribal organizations and cultural fire practitioners to revitalize cultural burning across their ancestral territories, a practice significantly limited by USFS in the last century.
Don Hankins, professor at California State University, Chico and cultural fire practitioner, said in a statement the strategic plan “takes an unprecedented step for the state to address shortcomings of current fire policy and use. Most significant is the recognition of the role of Native American Tribes, organizations and practitioners to revitalize traditional fire stewardship.”
The strategic plan calls for land managers to consult with Tribes to determine how traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous expertise and cultural objectives may be incorporated into projects. The state and its partners will support the establishment of Indigenous fire workshops or other training opportunities led by Tribes, Tribal organizations and cultural fire practitioners.
Hankins told CNN the change would take time before cultural burns lead to a visible difference, as some Tribal members need to retrain.
“We’ve got to build the capacity around it again. It’s not like flipping a switch and everybody’s back out lighting those fires,” Hankins said. “There’s a lot of learning that needs to take place in our communities and figuring out how we can work together with our neighbors, agencies and the public to make it widespread again.”
The state will monitor, assess and mitigate the potential adverse public health impacts of smoke and educate the public on the benefits of the use of prescribed burns.
Newsom announced in April 2021 the relaunch of the Forest Management Task Force to deliver commitments in the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan released by Newsom in January 2021. The action plan is backed by the governor’s $1.5 billion investment in forest health and wildfire resilience and a proposed $1.2 billion additional investment for fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24. — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
