Will CAL FIRE ever reevaluate their wildland firefighting strategies?
After learning a little bit about forestry and resource management CAL FIRE’s policy of keeping 95% of fires at 10 acres or less seems kinda counterproductive. I’m relatively new to wildland firefighting, but having spent some time around both Feds and CAL FIRE it seems there is a lot of animosity toward each other’s incident management and strategies.
I understand that there is a difference in coverage responsibility, with the feds covering generally less populated areas. This lends itself to letting low intensity fires burn longer to properly manage forests and other vegetation. However, CAL FIRE’s “selling point” and also their biggest critique is their initial attack capabilities/strategy. Sending as many resources as they can to an incident before it has any chance of growing. This is obviously great for when lives or property is threatened but seems out of place for many remote low-intensity fires.
What is preventing CAL FIRE from adopting a more prevention focused plan, increasing prescribed burns, utilizing modified containment and increasing funding to vegetation management programs?
BTW I’m not talking bad about CAL FIRE I’m just curious about why these policies were chosen