California is calling upon Native American tribes to bring back the once-prohibited practice of lighting controlled burns to help prevent devastating wildfires that have wreaked havoc on the state.
Highlights
- Gov.
- Gavin Newsom’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force has launched a new plan – “Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire” Native American tradition of prescribed, cultural burns will be revived, Newsom says.
- These burns are purposefully set, low-intensity fires to rid the land of wildfire fuel like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses.
- The US government outlawed burnings through the Weeks of the Weeks Act in 1911.
- The new plan aims to expand “beneficial fire” practices to 400,000 acres annually by 2025.
- The burning practices will help make “forests more resilient” and decrease the likelihood of future wildfires