A newly passed bill in the California state Legislature would increase legal protections for private entities setting controlled fires, paving the way for more prescribed burns as a wildfire suppression tool.
Prescribed burns can break down potential wildfire fuel — such as downed trees — and reduce the spread of wildfires. Professionals setting prescribed burns — called burn bosses – can be held liable if the fire they set gets out of control and causes unintentional harm or requires firefighters to intervene. Under current law, these burn bosses are held to the standard of simple negligence — whether they use an ordinary level of care.
Senate Bill 332, introduced by Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and co-authored by Assemblymember Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, raises the burden to gross negligence — an extreme lack of care.
In a statement, Dodd said the concern about being held liable for the costs of suppressing a prescribed burn has been a major obstacle in its use as a tool for combatting wildfires, but that the strategy is one of the most cost-effective ways to manage wildfires. Dodd said the bill is supported by a “broad coalition” that includes ranchers, conservationists and tribal governments.
However, the bill was opposed by the Consumer Attorneys of California, Personal Insurance Federation of California and National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, who worried the heightened protections would erode accountability and potentially result in unintentional wildfires.
“We believe it is poor policy to lessen the legal accountability standard of professionals doing one of the most dangerous things one can do in California — start a wildfire,” the organizations wrote in a letter to Dodd and Wood this March. “The consequences of negligent conduct in California based on the horrendous fire tornadoes and quick spread we have seen cannot be underestimated.”
In a statement, Dodd said that prescribed burns have rarely led to unintentional damage.
“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 wildlands,” Dodd said in the statement. “Controlled burning is a valuable tool in addressing this problem.”
The bill passed the Senate and Assembly on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively, by unanimous bipartisan votes and now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
What do we have here? About three hundred and fifty miles of just one mountain. Better hire about a couple hundred thousand illegal aliens if you want it done in our lifetime.
Buy the 747s and stop messing around.
I am still shocked Newsom hasn’t purchased more Fire fighting planes. He should have used the “ surplus“ money he found to fight fires instead of using it to buy votes.
At long last!
May be too little too late.
Politicians are just looking for cover –
This legislation does not stop the environmentalist wacko attorney in Berkeley from going to court and stopping sensible forest management through prescribed burns and other methods.
That’s the real problem.
Sorry folks it’s the liberal idiot you need to get rid of.
Good luck with that.
What is old is new again.
Don’t mind all the wildlife you’d be killing. way to go dumb dumbs.
Presumably, the controlled burns would be done in places likely to (eventually) be burned anyways.
@double dzzz so you want to keep on having these record setting fires year after year? As the lion king says there is a circle of life, and every animal is going to die, but this can stop major death and destruction down the road. People who think like you are reinforcing my that my decision to leave this god forsaken state was the correct one.
@ double dzzz
How much wildlife is being killed right now with all these uncontrolled wildfires year after year after year?
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
@ double dzzz
Controlled burns allow animals to move ahead of the fire.
Forest fires entrap and destroy animals that run to exhaustion or can’t maneuver out of harm’s way.
The gross ignorance of current forest management is why there are these huge uncontrolled fires.
I’ve said it before, I hate bleeding hearts.
They contribute nothing of value to society.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I remember they discontinued controlled burns when one year they completely lost control of several large burns and caused havoc, destruction, and death as a result.
Good, I can’t remember so many times there were fires on a yearly basis. I hope it helps
Like I’ve been saying for years, we are decades and MANY MILLIONS of acres behind in clearing/thinning (which Newsom lied about), and prescribed burns are the ONLY feasible way to even approach getting out of this hole.
@Pete V….Though not a prescribed burn a large portion is getting cleaned and thinned now, or am I stating the obvious?
Right. The fires we’ve had the last several years have virtually eliminated the possibility that these areas will burn again any time soon. It’s the reason that in remote areas they are allowed to continue burning week after week, and each one is bigger than the last. Getting it over with, since it’s on fire anyway.
Actually, logging of fallen and diseased trees would help at least as much without all the smoke.
Gittyup,
There is a bunch of logging going on in the Plumas National Forest right now, but the loggers must wait until the fire is out lol! Currently they are still logging out the wood from last year’s fire near Quincy. The bigger problem is that there isn’t much use for Ponderosa pine wood. Not the greatest for building materials and we don’t use a lot of paper anymore.
This thread brings to mind the old FRAM oil filter commercial, “maintenance”…..a novel idea….https://youtu.be/Ij1yDpfZI8Q
As someone that complains about California politics, let me say good job on this one. It’s sorely needed, and 8m happy to see the state legislature doing something intelligent for once.
By the way, prescribed burns have gotten out of control in the past and they will again in the future. But the aggregate damage will be far less over time this way than letting everything build up until we get mega fires like Dixie. If you live in fire country, plan accordingly.
“8m happy”?! Your Welsh accent is DEEP!
Newsom will kill it. He owes his special interest donors.
if the democrats are promoting it, it must be bad somehow.
pushing this as if it was a new idea, that somehow it is a problem, sounds like they are trying to cover for not doing what had always been done in this for decades because of their flawed support for tree hugging idiots.
#RecallGavinNewsom
… the right thing – let’s hope they keep them controlled and not like the one that got out of control in Lafayette last year… wonder what the carbon emissions will be for the green air people to talk about
Larry Elder isn’t governor yet, and he’s already pushing the narrative! Otherwise, the bill would have been to pay arsonists $500 a month not to start forest fires.
Don’t fires emit huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – isn’t CA against that… 🤔
That was another reason they discontinued them years ago. The push was for cleaner air and controlled burns were contributing to air pollution.
I kind of like the idea of hiring college professors to burn down our forests so the anarchists, antifa, and woke college students can feel they are getting their parent’s money’s worth.
Funny!
Well, those are groups that prefer to be pacified………..
This is how they plan on doing it.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/09/03/blm-to-convert-hundreds-of-seasonal-forestry-technicians-who-fight-fire-to-permanent-positions/
This is a great first step.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/09/03/blm-to-convert-hundreds-of-seasonal-forestry-technicians-who-fight-fire-to-permanent-positions/