Senator Monique Limón is working on a new law aimed at reducing massive wildfires in California.
Right now, it's a difficult process to get a prescribed burn approved, but that's what fire experts say will help reduce the number of fires in the state.
“This bill would allow for further kind of consideration of the environment, of the landscape, of the area, in terms of where prescribed burns are done,” said Limón
Senator Monique Limón says Senate Bill 1101 will help reduce some of the hurdles to using prescribed burns while also continuing to protect the environment.
“Certainly there are several limitations for it, but this is something that we believe is helpful to preventing the mass scale wildfires, which devastate hundreds and thousands of acres, homes, businesses, have horrible air quality,” Limón said.
Cal Fire is hoping to use prescribed burns in areas throughout San Luis Obispo County to reduce future fire danger.
“Here in San Luis Obispo, we look at creating landscape scale projects because as we know, wildland fires don't know jurisdictional boundaries and they won't just stop because it's a federal responsibility or state responsibility area," said Dave Erickson, Cal Fire, San Luis Obispo County Fire Department forester. "So, we look to work with all our partners to create a mosaic of treatments across the county."
Limón says this bill will help facilitate those burns, especially in high-risk areas.
“If this bill is approved, it will absolutely help all 58 counties, particularly counties that have an increase in the number of annual wildfires,” said Limón. “We've seen that. We think it's very beneficial. We look at ways that we can take past practices and adopt them in an environmentally friendly way.”
This year, the state has assigned each Cal Fire unit to conduct at least 3,000 acres of prescribed burns.
Erickson says the burns can even be helpful to the environment.
“We look to increase biodiversity by creating different age classes of species, heights of vegetation, and by opening up an area using prescribed fire we’re trying to recreate natural fire regimes in the area,” said Erickson.
Limón says it's helping the environment while at the same time preventing wildfires.
“In the end, we know that if we're able to mitigate large-scale wildfires and mitigate them with prescribed remedies of such that we do less harm to the community and environment,” said Limón.
Senator Monique Limón says if Senate Bill 1101 makes it past the committee review process, then the bill is expected to land on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk by August 31.
