Endangered Habitats League took the lead on organizing legal and scientific comments on the latest iteration of a misguided plan to clear vegetation across California.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and Board of Forestry first released Vegetation Treatment Program (VTP) in 2013. The ostensible purpose of the VTP is to change the behavior, and reduce the scope of, massive wildfires by removing native vegetation by clearing, herbicides, mastication, and prescribed burning. At that time, EHL and a group of fire scientists uncovered basic misconceptions about the ecology of fire, such as conflating chaparral and scrub (shrub) communities with conifer forests. We also showed that the VTP’s primary assumption – that clearing vegetation distant from structures would reduce fire hazard – had no scientific basis for shrubland habitats and that, instead, a “house out” approach for reducing structure flammability and creating defensible space immediately around structures was what the scientific literature supported.

The flaws EHL identified were so great that the State Legislature mandated a scientific peer review, which delivered devastating criticism of the underlying science. Subsequently, we worked diligently with CAL FIRE, but the 2016 version of the plan, while correcting some of the underlying science, continues to propose the same misguided vegetation removal, to the tune of 60,000 acres per year. 

EHL once again organized scientific and legal comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report. The law firm of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger identified numerous fundamental flaws under the California Environmental Quality Act, including failure to disclose and mitigate biological impacts. In its comments, EHL offered an alternative approach of more limited treatments near communities and well-placed fuel breaks for firefighting access that would be more effective in achieving VTP goals. We are grateful to several allied conservation groups who helped with funds, coordinated efforts, and submitted their own comments, including California Chaparral Institute, the foremost advocate on these issues.

In a broader sense, EHL continues to point to the ongoing land use debacle in which local governments continually expand the “urban wildland interface” with dispersed development and are not held accountable, even financially, for the enormous costs of firefighting and for loss of life and property.