Lawsuit
Filed Against Cal Fire Program
By
MessengerMountainNews Staff, February 21, 2020
In
a 15-year effort to protect ten million acres of priceless
habitat from being destroyed by Cal Fire, the California Chaparral
Institute and other environmental groups claim Cal Fire has
ignored the wind-driven fires that cause the greatest loss
of life and property.
Fire
safety experts and environmental protection advocates filed
suit on January 28, to block a state-wide plan, the California
Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP), targeting a quarter-million
acres of habitat per year for clearance under the guise of
fire protection. Through the use of herbicides, grinding machines,
unnatural fire (prescribed burns), and soil disturbance, Cal
Fire plans to clear vast areas of important carbon-absorbing
habitat already threatened by climate change.
While
large, high-intensity wildfires are inevitable in California,
the destruction of our communities is not. Extensive scientific
research clearly indicates that the best way to protect lives,
property, and the natural environment from wildfire is through
a comprehensive approach that focuses on community and regional
planning, reducing ignitability of structures, and modifying
vegetation within and directly around communities at risk.
By
focusing exclusively on clearing habitat across the landscape,
Cal Fire is not addressing the main causes for loss of life
and property from wildland fireflammable homes placed
on flammable terrain.
Despite
the fact that 87 percent of the destruction of homes in 2017
and 2018 was caused by only six wind-driven wildfires (out
of a total of approximately 16,000 fires), Cal Fire is doubling
down on its failed strategy of focusing on wildland fires
that pose the least risk.
The
VTP is a massive taxpayer boondoggle, said Dan Silver,
Director of the Endangered Habitats League, as it wastes
hundreds of millions of dollars on ineffective measures.
Among
other things, the lawsuit alleges the VTP is misguided in
utilizing the same techniques that have not worked in the
past, and that, in fact, create conditions that increase the
rate of fire movement, facilitate the spread of embers, and
allow for increased wind speeds, all of which endanger homes
and communities.
The
EIR failed to adequately analyze impacts to human health,
community protection, air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions,
said Everett DeLano, the attorney representing the groups
filing the lawsuit.
The
Program also illegally limits protections to coastal chaparral
and fails to protect inland and forest chaparral. The lawsuit
asks that the agencies go back and do that analysis, and also
consider alternative measures that would be less harmful to
the environment and human health and would be more effective
in preventing fires, DeLano said.
The
California Chaparral Institute, Endangered Habitats League,
and many others are calling on Governor Newsom, the California
Board of Forestry, and Cal Fire to retract their proposal
and work collaboratively with all interested parties to create
a comprehensive wildfire risk reduction program that will
actually protect lives and property from the fires that cause
all the damage, reduce fire suppression costs, reduce carbon
in the atmosphere, and protect fragile, native habitats already
threatened by climate change.
top
|