Newsom steps up efforts to expand wildfire reduction efforts

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(The Center Square) - Efforts to reduce wildfires in California are converging with this week's executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“California is not letting up when it comes to confronting the wildfire crisis – especially as [President Donald] Trump’s cuts slow down critical wildfire safety projects,” Newsom said in an Oct. 29 press release. “We’ve made tangible progress, but much more is needed. I’m tasking state agencies to pull all the levers and gear up for using ‘good fire’ this year to help protect communities and restore healthy landscapes.”

Newsom’s executive order for departments in the state government to ramp up efforts to reduce wildfire risk come on the heels of the federal government’s reduction of the U.S. Forest Service, which has its own firefighting agency. Among other requirements, Newsom’s executive order mandates that collaborative efforts be made to update prescribed fire permitting, address air quality concerns caused by wildfire smoke and allow agencies to carry out prescribed fire projects.

The push to expand wildfire fighting efforts is the latest in Newsom’s plans to make California more wildfire-resistant. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection awarded $72 million in May to support land management projects that aimed to restore forest health and enhance long-term carbon storage, according to a press release issued from the governor’s office.

CalFire officials were unavailable to answer The Center Square’s questions on Friday.

According to Newsom’s office, prescribed fires - essentially, controlled wildfires set intentionally to reduce the long-term risk of far more damaging wildfires - have been practiced for millennia by Native American tribes and cultural practitioners. Managed fires of this nature regenerate plant life, allow for hunting and gathering and control temperatures that assist fisheries, among other benefits.

Those practices were outlawed over the last 200 years, the press release from Newsom’s office said.

“For thousands of years, tribal communities have utilized fire to keep our forests healthy," Wade Crowfoot, the secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, said in the press release. "Now we’re following their lead to use safe, controlled fire to protect our communities and restore health to our environment. This is a watershed moment for California as we fully embrace these practices successfully used for centuries to help prevent catastrophic wildfire.”

Crowfoot and other officials from the California Department of Natural Resources were not available to answer questions on Friday afternoon.

State officials have used this method of reducing the risk of wildfires already. According to the governor’s office, 260,000 acres of land in California were treated with prescribed burns, and CalFire completed its goal of treating 50,000 acres of land with prescribed burns in May.

The California Department of Natural Resources recently highlighted in an Oct. 29 e-newsletter that 159 projects to reduce wildfire risk were expedited this year, building on the work of 2,000 wildfire mitigation and forest resilience projects overseen in recent years by the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force.

Task force officials were not available for comment on Friday.

“Cultural and prescribed burns offer proven strategies for managing wildfire risks across our state's unique ecosystems," said Secretary for Environmental Protection Yana Garcia. “California will intensify its fight to protect communities from the devastating effects of climate change. This includes upholding time-honored practices that have safeguarded our people and natural resources for generations.”.

According to a 2022 report on beneficial fire from the governor’s office, higher temperatures and more frequent droughts are occurring in California, creating conditions for wildfires that are more challenging to fight than years past, and they are expected to get worse. State officials were hoping to treat 400,000 acres annually with beneficial fire by this year.

“One of the best tools at our disposal is the intentional use of fire,” the report reads. “Through prescribed fire, cultural burning, and fire managed for resource benefit, we can significantly improve the resilience of many of California’s fire-dependent ecosystems.”

Legislators who sponsored bills dealing with wildfire mitigation, wildfire risk and support to firefighters were unavailable to comment Friday.