In an interview, Cal Fire's Joe Tyler, who was appointed chief in March, said the department is making progress on improving forest health and protecting communities in advance of catastrophic fires by "investing in community preparedness and mitigation" and "continuing to do those fuels projects across the board." But progress toward that goal has been slow, in part because a key state program failed to increase project completions. In 2020, Newsom tasked Cal Fire, along with partners that control state and private land, with performing 500,000 acres of forest management and fire mitigation work every year by 2025. The department could not provide a more current total. It completed fire prevention work - directly or through grants - on 105,000 acres in the fiscal year that ended in June 2020. The report, required by law, is an inventory of Cal Fire's efforts and helps lawmakers understand the state's progress on protecting vulnerable communities.Ĭal Fire has increased its output during the past five years.
A program, required under state law to bolster the prescribed-burn workforce, suffered nearly a year of delay. Cal Fire has taken years to implement laws passed by the state Legislature.The department still can't determine how many acres of work it completed and funded through grants in the fiscal year ending in June 2021. Cal Fire is struggling to track wildfire prevention projects that experts say are desperately needed to protect communities from destructive wildfires.However, Cal Fire's forest management hiring remains stagnant, while its firefighting staffing has ballooned. The state set aside a record $1.5 billion for wildfire prevention and forest health in 2021.But a monthslong investigation by The California Newsroom, a public media collaboration, found that the department continues to fumble key responsibilities related to forest management and wildfire mitigation, potentially leaving the state at greater risk of catastrophic fires. But money alone does not solve the problem.Ĭal Fire has publicly signaled a commitment to rebalancing its priorities. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature lavished the department with record amounts of money for prescribed burns, brush clearing and cutting fuel breaks. Today, Cal Fire is at an inflection point: trying to return to a greater emphasis on fire mitigation and forest health, while still working to protect communities from historic and deadly wildfires. But it's not a forestry department," Wilson said. Firefighting, not forestry, became the route to advancement.
#Cal fire incidents 2021 how to
Foresters are trained to see wooded areas as living ecosystems, and know how to make them more fire-resilient.īut in the years after his tenure, he says the culture changed. When he led the department in the 1990s, he claims it viewed caring for forest health as a primary mission.
Wilson is not just any worried landowner: He's the former head of Cal Fire, the state department responsible for fighting wildfires and managing forestland.Īnd while Cal Fire is broadly recognized as a leader in firefighting, Wilson says it is also partly to blame for the looming danger. This year, Wilson fears, will be dangerous, as well: "We are headed into a tenuous time."
0 kommentar(er)
