#Burn book cover print out how to

“You lose pasture land, you lose biodiversity and then wildfires start getting harder to control.” “These landscapes, when you stop burning, intentionally or unintentionally, they start changing, usually for the brushier,” Childress says. Without land management, flammable vegetation known as fuel loads, accumulate and become fuel for future wildfires. Prescribed burning is a land management practice implemented nationwide. They’re just another way to increase the pace and scale of treatments.” And they get things on the ground much faster.

“PBAs put the process back in the hands of people: ranchers, indigenous tribes. “Prescribed fire has been this black box of agency for so long,” says Barbara Statink-Wolfson, fire advisor with the UC Cooperative Extension. Frustrated by the roadblocks they were hitting at the bureaucratic level, these fire advisors discovered PBA’s could be a more efficient way to bring good fire to private land.Ĭhildress, in collaboration with colleagues from the UC Cooperative Extension, started the Central Coast PBA (CCPBA) in 2020, covering Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey Counties.Ĭhildress is also a state-certified fire manager with specialized training to run burns safely and efficiently. PBAs: What They Areįire advisors laughed California’s first PBA launched in 2017 in Humboldt County. “The best way to think about it really is less of an organization or a nonprofit-it’s a network,” says Jared Childress, the Program Manager of the Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA). PBAs are sprouting up across California as one solution to curbing wildfire severity. This PBA has an impressive roster of volunteers: tribal members, ranchers, fire departments, regional residents and landowners and environmentalists.Īs climate change causes more extreme weather conditions, wildfires are becoming more prevalent.

Good fire is a planned fire, like a prescribed burn, used for land management practices. PBAs are comprehensive networks of volunteers who pool their resources, time, knowledge and equipment to put “good fire” back on the land. Instead it’s run by a collaborative grassroots effort known as a Prescribed Burn Association (PBA). It’s not run by a state agency, like CAL FIRE. This prescribed fire is different from others. The smoke kicks up almost immediately once the fire catches.

Val Lopez, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, opens the burn along with members of the Esselen Tribe by lighting a small batch of grass on fire.Ī few volunteers rake vegetation nearby before one firefighter lights a line of grass on fire using a drip torch.

#Burn book cover print out how to

This particular June 4 burn, on a 540-acre property owned and managed by the San Benito Agricultural Land Trust, was part of a workshop for community members interested in learning how to safely burn on their own.īefore the burn starts, a group of over 50 firefighters participate in a briefing to discuss wind, weather, burn strategy and potential concerns.

This practice, known as a controlled or prescrib ed burn, is when a large area is cleared of vegetation by a managed fire. On a Sunday morning, a large, well-orchestrated crew dressed in Nomex yellows start setting tall dry grass on fire with calm precision and a variety of tools.