New bill expected to encourage use of ‘good fire’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed a new bill that is expected to encourage the use of prescribed burns to reduce fuel buildup in forests.

The bill raises the legal standard under which property owners and professionals who manage prescribed burns can be held liable for damages if a controlled fire gets out of hand.

The bill, authored by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, adopts a new “gross negligence” standard, replacing a lower threshold of “simple negligence.”

Advocates say the simple negligence standard discouraged people from engaging in “good fire” to clear fuel-choked forests even though accidents are rare.

“Liability is one of the biggest concerns that both private landowners and burn bosses have in conducting prescribed burning, and the things that SB 332 tackles are the things that keep us up at night,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, fire adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension’s Humboldt County office and director of Northern California Prescribed Fire Council.

Sasha Berleman, a local leader in the movement and the director of Fire Forward for Audubon Canyon Ranch, called the bill “an achievement worthy of celebration.”

“It’s a long awaited and crucial step forward in the effort to increase capacity and ability to get good fire on the ground and finally reintroduce a stewardship model to California,” Berleman said.

The new law is one of three bills approved in the last legislative session and signed by the governor in recent weeks to promote land management and wildfire control.

Controlled burns are a tool long used by Indigenous communities to encourage growth of desired plants and control accumulation of dead and dying vegetation that now litter the landscape, fueling huge wildfires in the age of climate extremes.

Recent efforts to reverse a century of fire suppression and restore its use have gained traction, but the liability issue was considered a significant obstacle, particularly since insurance coverage was not available for burn bosses — those trained and certified to run prescribed burns.

The state wildfire budget approved earlier this fall included $20 million for a pilot project establishing a prescribed fire claims fund. Practitioners would be able to use the money to pay damages resulting from escaped burns — say, if a sudden and extremely gusty wind came up, Quinn-Davidson said. New laws also allow the state and other public fire agencies to provide suppression assistance free to practitioners in the absence of gross negligence, she said.

Another bill calls on Cal Fire to increase the use of prescribed burns. It also calls for improved educational programming, grants, partnerships with Native American tribes and other cultural fire practitioners, and establishment of a prescribed fire training center.

“Today we take an important step toward protecting our state from the kinds of wildfires that have been so destructive over the past few years,” Dodd in a news release. “Controlled burning is a valuable tool in addressing the buildup of fuels in our parched forests and wildlands. Its use can save us from ever-worsening conditions caused by drought and climate change.”

Quinn-Davidson said the new legislation reflects a grassroots effort supported widely by ranchers, conservationists and tribes.

“We never thought we’d see any of this stuff happen in California,” she said. “We’re up against the fire suppression machine in the state, and to have all these things go through? It’s just monumental.”

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

Editor’s note: This story corrects a misstatement in the original version. The simple negligence standard discouraged prescribed burning because of greater exposure to liability.