Editor’s note: Annie Leverich is the communications manager for FAC Net, and manages the Fire Networks blog and TREX/WTREX social media channels. She is also active in supporting communications around cultural burning and prescribed fire in California, where she lives. In early June 2024, Annie traveled to Hopland, CA to attend the California Prescribed Burn Association Leader’s Meeting. In this blog, Annie gives some background on Prescribed Burn Associations, and shares some takeaways from some of the leaders sparking change at the forefront of the movement for good fire in California. All photos credit to the author/The Watershed Research and Training Center.
Fun stuff happens when you get a bunch of fire nerds together. There’s a buzz in the air as folks trickle in to the beautiful facilities at the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources (UCANR)’s Hopland Research and Extension Center. Some people are longtime friends and colleagues, lighting up when they see each other walk in the room, some people are brand new to this movement and have open smiles as they make their introductions.
What brings them all here? A common involvement in the rapidly growing Prescribed Burn Association (PBA) movement in California. Intentional fire for cultural and ecological uses has been present in California for millennia. Indigenous people have consistently used fire since time immemorial, despite a significant decrease at the time of colonization when intentional fire was criminalized by white settlers. We’ve been slowly working our way out of decades (now centuries) of fire suppression and fire exclusion. PBAs are one branch of the regrowth that California is seeing to welcome back beneficial fire to its landscapes and people. This meeting in Hopland, hosted by UC ANR’s Fire Network and the Watershed Research and Training Center with support from the Wildfire Strategies program of Resources Legacy Fund, was a chance for leaders of PBAs across the state to come together, share resources, and reinforce the network.
2017 – Sparking the PBA Model in California
The PBA model in California was inspired by community-led burning groups in the Great Plains states. PBAs encourage mutual aid and support in restoring fire to landscapes that need it for ecosystem health and land use benefits. Neighbors come together to help each other, boosting capacity for larger-scale burn operations that one landowner or land steward couldn’t do on their own. Check out some of the PBAs in Nebraska and Oklahoma.
In 2016, Lenya Quinn-Davidson and Jeffery Stackhouse with UC ANR invited a group of PBA leaders to Humboldt County from the Great Plains, leaning on connections made through the Fire Learning Network and The Nature Conservancy’s Jeremy Bailey. The two following years, in 2017 and 2018, they traveled to Nebraska to burn with and learn from those same PBA leaders. They returned to California with enough inspiration to spark California’s first PBA in Humboldt County in 2017/18. For several years after that, they traveled the state hosting workshops and sparking new interest in PBAs, and in 2020, the WRTC began focusing their fire program on the development and support of PBAs, too. Now, California has over 25 PBAs in formation, many of which are actively bringing their communities together and conducting prescribed burns. A list of formed/forming PBAs can be found on the CalPBA.org website. This was the fourth statewide retreat of California’s PBA leaders, following events in Humboldt County in 2019, Hopland in 2020, and Santa Barbara County in 2022.
Takeaways and Considerations in the CA PBA Conversation
Welcoming New People to the Movement
PBA leaders are working hard to create welcoming and accessible inroads for people new to fire to get involved. One PBA has a steering committee with a specific priority to encourage more involvement from different community members. Several PBAs have listservs that anyone can join to stay up to date on upcoming burn opportunities and training courses (many of them NWCG–but not all). Many have hosted barbeques and picnics to encourage community members to learn more about their work and have a tasty meal in the process. PBAs have community at the heart – which means meeting people where they are and prioritizing local engagement.
Partnering with Tribes and Cultural Practitioners
California’s PBAs are very grassroots, locally led efforts, and each PBA has its own flavor and focus depending on who is involved. In some places, PBAs have emerged from or were inspired by early Range Improvement Association efforts, and have a strong connection to the ranching community. Other PBAs have more involvement from natural resource professionals and non-profit organizations, while others might include more rural homeowners and non-industrial timberland owners, among others. While a handful of PBAs in California center on cultural burning and Indigenous partnerships, PBA leaders voiced an interest in using the retreat as an opportunity to learn more about building and maintaining Tribal partnerships – an area where all of the PBAs see room for improvement. The meeting included a conversation with He-Lo Ramirez with the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria, California (same region as the Butte PBA) and Lindsay Dailey with the Tribal Eco-Restoration Alliance and the Lake County PBA, where they shared insights from their work, and reflected on future directions and approaches that might work for California’s PBAs as they continue to expand their work in thoughtful and collaborative ways.
Recognizing Complicated Relationships to Fire
CA PBAs are often working in communities that have experienced serious wildfire impacts. In this way, fire can be a touchy subject – and can carry trauma. PBA leaders acknowledge the need for sensitivity and relationship-building over time to create the trust and awareness that communities deserve before intentional fire can take place.
Blake Ellis, a licensed ecotherapist and Ecotherapy Program Manager with the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, led the group in a “forest bathing” experience under the huge valley oak trees near the outdoor patio of the Preserve. Blake emphasized the importance of repairing relationships between people and place, and that the loss of landscape from wildfire can lead to serious trauma on an individual and community scale. Resources like ecotherapy can support communities as they move forward after a serious wildfire event.
Liability Is a Complication, but a Manageable One
Another highlight of the PBA Leader’s Retreat was our time with Sara Clark, an attorney from San Francisco who has been supporting and advising prescribed fire and cultural burning efforts in California for almost a decade. Sara has been instrumental in recent policy change in California, and she has worked with many of California’s PBAs to help them understand and clarify liability. Sara provided the group with an overview of recent policy changes, including the Prescribed Fire Claims Fund and other liability-related advances, and she provided time for a Q&A, where PBA leaders could ask questions and hear her thoughts. Sara has been an invaluable partner in this work, and it’s always great to have time to pick her brain and connect with her.
These types of events are necessary for keeping the momentum and enthusiasm going for the hard work of restoring community-led fire back to California’s landscapes. California is just one place where good work is happening – and exchanges between PBAs in different states are frequent (read about the 2023 PBA Exchange that brought together folks from across the country).
It’s easy to feel good about this work when you’re gathered with such special people in a beautiful place. Until next time!
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