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

"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. Prescribed burn associations are local groups of private prescribed fire practitioners who help conduct burns on each other's lands, the report said. There are already 27 prescribed burn associations in California, according to Stanford's report."

""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. 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. Schalet acknowledged the cultural burning programs of the Ohlone, Tamien and Amah Mutsun tribes and said that the Saratoga-based Firesafe Council would be working with local indigenous tribes as they continue their forest health treatments and integrate beneficial fire practices throughout West Santa Clara County."

The Santa Clara County FireSafe Council seeks a $400,000 state grant to establish a South Bay Prescribed Burn Association. Prescribed fire is the intentional and conditional use of fire on a landscape and can reduce tinder to prevent high-intensity wildfires, restore habitats and watersheds, and support carbon and forest resilience. Prescribed burn associations are locally organized groups of private practitioners who conduct burns on each other's lands; California already has 27 such associations. The FireSafe Council plans to incorporate prescribed fire into forest health programs and collaborate with Ohlone, Tamien and Amah Mutsun tribes to integrate cultural burning practices.

Read at The Mercury News