LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — With just days left to finish approving bills passed by the Legislature in this session, Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill to increase control burning and knowledge of the practice across California while another to address prescribed burning liability is still waiting on his desk.
Gov. Newsom signed AB 642 by Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) on Sept. 28.
Still waiting to be signed by the Oct. 10 deadline is SB 332 by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), who formerly represented Lake County in the State Assembly.
“You never know when the governor’s going to pick them up and think about signing them,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, area fire adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension and director for the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council.
Quinn-Davidson works to provide capacity and training to get the prescribed burning tool back in the toolbox of property owners.
She said AB 642 — introduced in February — has several components. The provision Quinn-Davidson is excited about is that the bill requires the state fire marshal to develop a proposal to establish a prescribed fire training center.
It would also require Cal Fire’s director to appoint a cultural burning liaison to serve on the State Board of Fire Services and advise Cal Fire on developing increased cultural burning activity.
Quinn-Davidson said that tribal liaison, in working with tribes and cultural practitioners, would make sure sovereignty and customs are protected. Tribes, she noted, have struggled with permitting and other issues related to prescribed burns.
Cal Fire must make recommendations on how to understand and model wildfire risk for a community and specific parcels, and establish an advisory work group to consult with in developing the recommendations; and Cal Fire must work with California State Universities, California tribes, tribal organizations and cultural fire practitioners to enhance its public education efforts regarding restoring fire processes and cultural burning.
The bill also directs Cal Fire to engage in recruitment efforts with tribes and cultural fire practitioners to fill vacancies in positions that engage in fuel reduction.
Quinn-Davidson said Cal Fire has hired prescribed fire crews over the last couple of years, but the positions haven’t been well paid and so they’ve seen a large amount of attrition with crew members transferring to other jobs.
The bill requires Cal Fire to assess those positions, make sure they pay well and focus on recruitment and retention. Quinn-Davidson said that the workforce needs to be developed. “So that’s an exciting piece.”
Then there is SB 332, the bill Quinn-Davidson has worked closely on with Dodd’s office.
Dodd introduced the bill as part of an 11-bill “Blueprint for Fire Safe California” legislative and budget package unveiled by the Senate Wildfire Working Group in May.
The bill received unanimous, bipartisan support. The Assembly passed SB 332 on Sept. 1 and the Senate approved it the following day. It was sent to the governor on Sept. 9.
“The destructive wildfires that are now threatening our state are a painful reminder that we must do all we can to reduce fuels in our parched forests and wild lands. Controlled burning is a valuable tool in addressing this problem,” Dodd said when the Legislature passed the bill.
Dodd’s office, which said the bill has a good chance of getting signed, reported that it is meant to protect the state from loss of life and property by expanding the use of prescribed burning to control combustible fuels.
Because the concern over being billed for wildfire suppression costs has prevented more widespread use of prescribed burning, Dodd intended the legislation to encourage more controlled burns by raising the legal standard for seeking state suppression costs, requiring a showing of gross negligence rather than simple negligence, Quinn-Davidson said.
Quinn-Davidson, who has worked with prescribed fire for more than a decade, said she is very excited that Dodd took up the issue and its barriers, liability being one of them.
If something goes wrong and a landowner needs help or has to have Cal Fire get a burn under control due to an unpredicted wind event, they could get a big bill. That matter of cost recovery “keeps me up at night,” Quinn-Davidson said.
“We’re not burning down houses. That's so rare,” she said, explaining that prescribed burns are incredibly safe. The number of such fires that have escaped and caused damage is well below 1% of all that are done.
Needing to call for support is also rare but more likely to happen, and so she said SB 332 changes the standard for cost recovery and what Cal Fire can bill property owners for in such situations.
If you’re being diligent and not grossly negligent, and if you are following best management practices to benefit the public, SB 332 would not allow Cal Fire to bill you, Quinn-Davidson said.
She said it’s a way for the state to show its support for prescribed burn projects.
“It’s a pretty basic premise but it’s actually a huge deal,” she said, noting SB 332 is a “simple and beautiful” bill that lays out best management practices and contains pieces for cultural practitioners, also offering them protections.
“It’s a pretty big deal because it’s saying that cultural burners have standing in California as well and we care about the work that they're doing and recognize it,” she said.
A complementary piece of legislation to SB 332 is SB 170, the Budget Act of 2021 by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), which included a $20 million prescribed fire claim fund in the state budget. Gov. Newsom signed that bill on Sept. 23.
Returning to the practice of burning
Quinn-Davidson said native peoples have been using control burns for millenia, and have had a very significant impact on fire in California. However, those practices were interrupted by the arrival of white settlers.
“That was the early big picture, we wiped out native peoples who were using fire constantly,” she said, noting that millions of acres were burned annually by tribes.
Ranchers were an early group to pick up some of those practices, mimicking fire to keep the landscape more open. Quinn-Davidson said ranchers became predominant users of the practice into the 1940s and 1950s.
There came a point when state and federal agencies didn’t want people lighting fires. Quinn-Davidson said the feds wanted to preserve timber, while the state had concerns about liability and the belief that it should be conducting the work.
In the 1980s, Cal Fire took over prescribed burning and developed a vegetation management program. “Over time they divested from their own program,” said Quinn-Davidson.
From the 1980s until recent years, only Cal Fire and federal agencies were doing major prescribed burns. With private landowners being taken completely out of the practice, ranchers and landowners lost their skills and native peoples had lost their connection with the practice, she said.
“What we have now is a generational gap in fire knowledge in California,” Quinn-Davidson added.
The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, can cause delays for Cal Fire when it pursues prescribed burns; it can sometimes take five or 10 years of planning and the project still doesn’t get done. Because the state is now funding a lot of prescribed fire work, it triggers CEQA, Quinn-Davidson explained.
However, she said private landowners don’t need to adhere to the law unless they have state funding or are working with a state agency.
She said a lot of people have been sending letters to the governor in support of the legislation. “People are very passionate about this.”
Groups as diverse as the California Cattlemen’s Association, the Karuk Tribe and Defenders of Wildlife have joined forces to support SB 332, which Quinn-Davidson said speaks volumes about its importance.
She said she loves that prescribed fire brings people together.
“The natural role of fire is so important,” she said.
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Governor signs bill to create prescribed fire training center; bill on control burn liability awaits signature
- Elizabeth Larson