California launches insurance fund for prescribed, cultural burns

In a move designed to boost California’s capacity to use “good fire” to reduce landscape fuels and diminish wildfire risk, the state has launched a new liability insurance fund for prescribed fire and cultural burn practitioners.

Rolled out Monday, the pilot program provides up to $2 million in coverage for approved applicants so they can more readily scale up the use of beneficial fire to burn off grasslands, reduce forest undergrowth, and apply fire to improve wildlife habitat and promote the growth of certain, desirable plants.

“It’s a pretty pivotal moment, actually,’’ said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, who helped develop the program as area fire adviser for the UC Cooperative Extension and director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council. ”Now we have the enabling conditions to do more of this work.’’

Eight applications were received during the first day the system was online — all from Northern California.

Eight more were submitted Tuesday, including two from Fire Forward, a prescribed fire program run by Sonoma County’s nonprofit Audubon Canyon Ranch.

Fire Forward plans a 6 1/2-acre operation Wednesday in Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, in partnership with Regional Parks, Park Program Supervisor Brook Edwards said. Friday and Sunday, burns are planned for Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bouverie Preserve and the Sonoma Land Trust’s adjacent Glen Oaks Ranch Preserve in Glen Ellen.

Fire Forward is one of the very few organizations in California lucky enough to have some insurance already, Program Director Sasha Berleman said via text message.

But “the opportunities for coverage have overall been so limited and precious,” she said. “It took us a long time to find coverage, and it’s very expensive. So this is important as a first line of defense so the coverage we have is supported and less likely to disappear.”

The insurance fund was created under legislation authored by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. It is among a host of new measures adopted in recent years to smooth the path and raise capacity for prescribed burns and cultural fires in California, giving greater attention to fuels management in the age of massive, catastrophic wildfires.

The state created a new burn boss certification program three years ago designed to grow the roster of individuals who can plan and manage burn operations, with proper permitting. Berleman, though already a leader in the “good fire’’ movement, was its first graduate.

Lawmakers, through another Dodd bill, additionally established new liability standards for the rare instances in which prescribed fires get out of control and escape. Now burn bosses are responsible for fire suppression costs only in cases in which “gross negligence’’ resulted in the escape.

The earlier standard of simple negligence made it harder for practitioners to obtain insurance coverage and was considered a critical impediment to increased prescribed fire use.

Now, unless there is gross negligence, burn bosses or cultural practitioners cannot be billed for the cost of calling firefighting resources.

“Prescribed fire is a cost-effective way to minimize the scope and severity of wildfires,” Dodd said in a news release. “’It’s a tool that has been used for millennia by Native American tribes and one that will continue to play a big role in wildfire prevention.’’

But there remained the issue of damage claims. And insurers, already making it harder for private property owners to insure against fire loss, remain reluctant to enter the arena, so help beyond a raised liability standard was needed.

Quinn-Davidson said she thinks of the new claim fund as “the missing puzzle piece in this bigger picture.’’

State and federal agencies are funding more and more fuels management and prescribed fire work, with California setting a target of using beneficial fire on 400,000 acres annually by 2025.

But ‘’there’s been a decreasing opportunity to get private insurance to cover this work,’’ Quinn-Davidson said.

“You’d be crazy to want to do this work in that space without any insurance available to you. That’s been this really big missing piece that has gotten worse and worse, and the insurance industry has pulled away generally from fire,’’ she said.

A total of $20 million is available to fund the insurance program through its Jan. 1, 2028, expiration date, so coverage can only be reserved by 200 applicants at a time. Each time one burn goes off without a hitch, another reservation can be approved, Cal Fire Information Officer Christine McMorrow said.

Though two prescribed fires started by the U.S. Forest Service grew into New Mexico’s largest-ever fire last year, burning 530 square miles in the northern part of the state, experts estimate there’s about a 1% chance that a planned fire will get out of control, if conducted using best management practices. And then it usually takes just a few additional firefighting resources to bring it back under control, Quinn-Davidson said.

The New Mexico fire was determined to have been conducted despite drier-than-expected conditions that, if properly calculated, would have prompted its postponement. The federal agency says, overall, that 99.84% of its fires go according to plan.

McMorrow, with Cal Fire, said the state hopes that enabling more prescribed and cultural fires to go forward will demonstrate how little risk is attached.

“The ultimate goal is to entice private insurers back to this market,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.