CAL FIRE Exceeds Goal of 100,000 Acres Treated Ahead of Schedule
CAL FIRE Exceeds Goal of 100,000 Acres Treated Ahead of Schedule
Transition to peak staffing for upcoming fire season also complete.
June 21, 2022 – CAL FIRE is making significant progress in their important contributions to California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. Today they announced two significant accomplishments, starting with the news that they have already surpassed one of the plan’s Key Action items – to treat 100,000 acres by 2025.
According to current estimates, CAL FIRE has achieved 110,925 acres treated by using all fuels reduction methods, including prescribed fire. The work includes more than 600 fuel reduction projects.
Along with achieving this important milestone, in preparation for the upcoming wildfire season, CAL FIRE has also completed the transition to peak staffing across California. Peak staffing ensures all CAL FIRE stations are open and staffed 24 hours per day; response capabilities are enhanced; all aircraft are prepositioned and staffed; and crews are staffed, trained, and working.
Recent CAL FIRE Grants Total Over $250M For Wildfire and Forest Resilience
Recent CAL FIRE Grants Total Over $250M For Wildfire and Forest Resilience
Funded projects address threatened communities, forest health, prescribed fire, restoring burned landscapes and more.
June 2, 2022 – CAL FIRE Grant Programs have allocated funds to address crucial needs in a wide range of areas related to wildfire and forest resilience. Together, they represent significant progress towards achieving the goals of California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Action Plan.
$118 million in funding was awarded for 144 Wildfire Prevention projects across the state. CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Prevention Grants enable local organizations like fire safe councils, to implement activities that address the hazards of wildfire and reduce wildfire risk to communities. Funded activities include hazardous fuel reduction, wildfire prevention planning, and wildfire prevention education.
CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program awarded 22 grants totaling $98.4 million for landscape-scale forest health and prescribed fire projects spanning over 55,000 acres and 14 counties. They also awarded $10 million to the North Coast Resource Partnership (NCRP) for its regional wildfire resilience plan, which was developed with support from the Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program.
30 grants totaling $33 million came from CAL FIRE’s Wood Products and Bioenergy Team for business and workforce development projects. Ten workforce grants will help train over 5,000 individuals in prescribed fire, fuels treatment, firefighting, and forestry, and another14 grants will create 120 jobs and utilize 750,000 tons of forest biomass that would otherwise remain in the woods or be burned in open piles. Two projects will expand the State’s native tree seed bank and grow seedlings to assist with reforestation, and six research and development grants will fund novel uses for forest biomass sourced from wildfire mitigation projects.
CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Resilience Program awarded $9.99 million in block grants to the American Forest Foundation (AFF), Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, and the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD). The grants will support forest improvement projects on approximately 6,000 acres of small non-industrial private forestlands and provide technical assistance to private landowners in13 counties.
Communities are embracing controlled burns
Communities are embracing ‘controlled burns’ to protect themselves
The past few years have led to record wildfires across the U.S. Decades of suppressing fires has led to overgrown forests, and a warming climate has increased their intensity and frequency. Christopher Booker reports from California on community-led efforts to preemptively set controlled fires, reducing the risk from large out-of-control fires while also restoring the ecological health of the forest.
RESOURCES
Can Prescribed Fires Mitigate Health Harm?
Can Prescribed Fires Mitigate Health Harm?
A Review of Air Quality & Public Health Implications of Wildfire & Prescribed Fire
Fire is critical to maintaining the health, resiliency, and diversity of habitats and ecosystems. Indigenous peoples of North America have used cultural fires for millennia to enhance biodiversity and other ecosystem benefits, as well as for ceremonial activities. Following Euro-American colonization, practices and policies shifted to promote fire exclusion, contributing to increased fuel loading and increased wildfire risk.
RESOURCES
Prescribed Burns Helped Curb the Caldor Fire
Prescribed Burns Helped Curb the Caldor Fire
September 20, 2021 – The Caldor Fire defied expectations, climbing up mountains and crossing highways, destroying more than 1,000 structures in the process. South Lake Tahoe narrowly avoided the fire’s wrath, which fire experts say was largely thanks to fire prevention activities, including prescribed burns. The following maps show how prescribed burns and other methods of removing vegetation to reduce the risk of hotter, larger fires — known as “fuel treatments” — slowed or curbed Caldor’s growth.
RESOURCES
Meet the People Burning California to Save It
Meet the People Burning California to Save It
July 29, 2021 – Frequent, low-intensity fires known as prescribed burns are one of the best ways to stop wildfires. So why isn’t California lighting more of them?