Reducing impediments to prescribed burning opportunities: the importance of collaborative relationships between land managers and air quality regulations

As more frequent and intense wildfires affect landscapes in the western United States, particularly in California, more and more people are choosing to relocate from cities to communities adjacent to wildlands. It has been estimated that up to ninety-five percent of firefighting costs, amounting to more than three billion dollars in 2014, are from protection of private property in such communities. Prescribed fire is an effective and fiscally responsible means of reducing hazardous fuels in wildlands. Some land managers are frustrated because the number of acres that they are able to treat with prescribed fire continues to fall short of what they believe will reduce wildfire risk and view air pollution law and policy as one of the top constraints to prescribed burning. Air quality regulators, faced with the challenge of balancing protection of public health from smoke while respecting that prescribed burns reduce the risk of future extreme air quality impacts from wildfire, are caught in the middle. This study sought to examine the issues contributing to constraints on prescribed burning through interviews and surveys with land managers and air quality regulators to understand why the impediments exist, with a focus on the geographic region of Northern California. The study found that while there was diversity among the attitudes and experiences of the participants in that region, the majority of land managers, especially the USFS respondents, believed that they were denied requests to burn by air quality regulators because of a lack of understanding or flexibility. At the same time, air quality regulators largely believed that land managers were not taking advantage of available burn days and most of the regulators were advocating for ways to increase, rather than inhibit, the land managers’ opportunities to burn. For important prescribed burn projects to be successful, land managers and air quality regulators must work together to build a collaborative culture. The findings of this research suggest that in Northern California, burn denials are the driver of land managers’ dissatisfaction and distrust of air quality regulators. The findings also suggest that there is a need for collaboration to increase the levels of cooperation and understanding. By focusing on shared goals and acting as partners in projects instead of as agencies with competing interests, land managers and air quality regulators can together more effectively increase the pace and scale of beneficial fire management.