April 28, 2021
The Honorable Lorena Gonzales,
Chair, Assembly Committee on Appropriations
State Capitol, Room 2114
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: AB 642 (Friedman) – Support
Dear Honorable Members of the California Legislature:
On behalf of the organizations listed above, we write in support of Assembly Bill 642 (Friedman), which will improve protection for Californians living in high fire hazard areas by facilitating increased cultural burning and prescribed fire and improving fire prevention.
In January, the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force released the California Wildfire and Forest Resiliency Plan. Among the recommendations of the action plan was a call for significantly increased prescribed fire and cultural burning. The task force also outlined support for community wildfire risk reduction. AB 642 will implement critical features of the plan.
Prescribed and cultural burns have a long history of vegetation management use, dating back to precolonial California. The recent Creek fire proved the effectiveness of prescribed fire when Southern California Edison property in Shaver lake was less damaged thanks to a decades-long history of prescribed fire. AB 642 provides for increased prescribed burning by improving prescribed fire training and permitting, and through the creation of a cultural burning liaison at the Department of Forestry and Fire.
An analysis following the 2018 Camp Fire by the Sacramento Bee indicated that 51% of homes built after 2008, according to Chapter 7A fire safety building standards, survived in contrast to the 18% of homes built prior to 2008. This bill would increase the number of new homes required to comply with these standards and would require CAL FIRE to make recommendations on how Californians can better understand and reduce their wildfire risk.
California needs to utilize all available tools in protecting high fire risk zones. This makes better use of protections new and old for the safety of Californians and their property. For these reasons, we support AB 642 (Friedman).
We look forward to working together with the legislature to better protect homes, communities and residents.
Respectfully,