Change wildfire strategy to prevention in California, coalition says

Prescribed or controlled burns is a way that Chico has helped manage vegetation growth in upper Bidwell Park in this 2015 photo. Now it’s being suggested that forests can be thinned using controlled burns. (Bill Husa — Enterprise-Record file) For wildfire ravaged Butte County, it may have been a message that residents skipped over 10 years ago, but would welcome this year as a different way to deal with wildfires.

A coalition of environmental groups and business organizations is asking the California Legislature for a significant investment in preventing wildfires. On a online press briefing Wednesday, the Resilient Forest Coalition that includes the Nature Conservancy, Pacific Forest Trust Fund and Sierra Business Council, among others, asked the state to dedicate $2 billion to wildfire prevention next year.

That money would include allocations for alternative programs, like more controlled burning, prevention measures around urban interfaces, community borders and individual residences, plus grants for smaller programs and workforce training. But it also pointed out that changing how wildfires are battled can change the understanding of what healthy forests are, and how communities can be healthy as well. At the bottom line is dedicating funding to wildfire prevention strategies, ranging from thinning […]

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