Santa Clara County may form its first prescribed burn association pending state grant

"The Santa Clara County FireSafe Council is waiting on approval of a state $400,000 grant to set up a South Bay Prescribed Burn Association. Prescribed fire is the intentional and conditional use of fire on a landscape, according to a definition provided by a Stanford University report published in August on prescribed fires on the West Coast. It has several benefits, including preventing high-intensity wildfires by reducing tinder, restoring habitats and watersheds and supporting carbon and forest resilience."

"The practice has long been associated with cultural burnings, where Native American tribes or other practitioners intentionally burn an area for cultural reasons, like ceremonial activities or to support biodiversity. Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, was one of the main authors of the report and said trees in Saratoga showed evidence of burns every seven to 10 years before the area was colonized by settlers in the mid-1800s."

"This will be a big leap forward to build out our Forest Health program by bringing (prescribed) fire into Santa Clara County to create more resilient ecosystems and reduce wildfire risk and burn severity throughout the county, FireSafe Council CEO Seth Schalet said in an email announcing the grant."

Prescribed fire is the intentional, conditional use of fire on a landscape. Prescribed burns reduce tinder to prevent high-intensity wildfires, restore habitats and watersheds, and support carbon storage and forest resilience. Prescribed burn associations are local groups of private practitioners who help conduct burns on each other's lands; 27 such associations already exist in California. A $400,000 state grant would establish a South Bay Prescribed Burn Association to expand prescribed fire across Santa Clara County and strengthen the Forest Health program. Cultural burning by Native tribes has long used fire for ceremonial and biodiversity purposes, with evidence of regular burns in Saratoga every seven to ten years before colonization. The Firesafe Council plans to collaborate with Ohlone, Tamien and Amah Mutsun tribes to integrate beneficial fire practices throughout West Santa Clara County.

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