Cattle grazing and prescribed burns can help California beat devastating wildfires

For all the misery that 2020 wrought in California, it also presented the state with a precious opportunity — a chance to seriously invest in wildfire prevention.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, in his January budget proposal, wisely laid out a framework for the California State Legislature to seize that opportunity. Because tax revenue, to the surprise of many, remained robust, Newsom has proposed an unprecedented, one-time expenditure of $1 billion in new wildfire-prevention investments. He is asking lawmakers to act quickly, so that about a third of that money can be used for early actions this spring.

State and federal officials have long talked of better preparing California landscapes to reduce the spread of wildfires but have often been overwhelmed by the costs of annually fighting relentless fires.

“This budget does represent somewhat of a paradigm shift,” Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s really a quantum increase in wildfire resilience investment.”

Spent wisely, those funds could support infrastructure and programs to reduce and control the wildland fuels that enable fires to burn so broadly and rapidly.

The need for action has never been greater. Last year was by far the worst fire year in California history, as thousands of fires collectively consumed more than 4.2 million acres. Those wildfires included six of the 10 largest recorded in state history.

The economic cost to homeowners, businesses, ranchers and government agencies was in the tens of billions of dollars.

Policymakers now have both the motivation and resources to take urgent action. There are proven strategies to reduce the size, spread and severity of catastrophic wildfires.

Among them is one that is decidedly low-tech but unquestionably effective: Expand the use of grazing by cattle, sheep and goats to reduce wildfire fuel.

Research by UC Cooperative Extension experts has shown that targeted grazing is a cost-effective tool for managing vegetation, and one that can be employed in areas where other measures are not possible.

California’s cattle ranchers, who own or manage much of the state’s 38 million acres of rangeland, were hard hit by last year’s unprecedented wildfires. Not only did they lose thousands of acres of pasture and hundreds of cattle, but ranchers also saw their rural communities decimated by fire.

They now need to be part of the solution by deploying livestock to reduce the accumulation of fine fuels on private rangeland and on public lands. The legislature can promote this proven landscape-management tool by appropriating funds for infrastructure such as fencing, and also authorizing long-term leases that would spur private investment for grazing on public lands.

Grazing is one of just two fuel-management methods that actually achieve the goal of removing fuel from our landscapes. The other is the use of prescribed burns — the practice of burning fuel under favorable weather conditions, rather than allowing it to build up only to burst into flame during the hottest, driest, windiest days of the year.

Newsom’s budget proposal seeks more than $500 million for large-scale vegetation projects including prescribed burning. The goal is to improve fire resiliency across 500,000 acres every year.

In addition to executing plans and conducting training, an effective prescribed burning program must also include policy changes such as reducing liability and reassessing air-quality considerations. These changes are vital to balance the effects of a limited amount of smoke from prescribed burns against the massive harm from the smoke and ash that blanketed much of California last year.

California has before it an opportunity to indeed change the wildfire paradigm from one of suppression to one of prevention. Lawmakers must seize the opportunity and act quickly so that work can begin this spring.

The reality of a changing climate is that California has seen a succession of monstrous fire seasons, capped by the worst ever in 2020. The possibility of what lies ahead is unsettling. The time to begin fighting the fires of 2021 is now, long before they start.

This story was originally published April 24, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Cattle grazing and prescribed burns can help California beat devastating wildfires."