Court says Cal Fire’s approach to SoCal’s wildfire crisis could make things worse

In a case that questions the vegetation-clearing techniques that have been institutionalized for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Call Fire, the San Diego Superior Court has ordered the agency to modify a program to reduce the risk of wildfires across the state because it could make things worse.

A years-long lawsuit filed by the California Chaparral Institute and the Endangered Habitats League against the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection over the year’s fires highlights deep differences between ecologists and firefighters’ approaches to solving California’s wildfire crisis.

Richard Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute, was thrilled. “The chaparral and sage scrub is over 10% of the state,” he said.

“Despite all the talk about how we love biodiversity, you’re going to destroy where most of the biodiversity is in the state,” Halsey said of CalFire’s plan.

Cal Fire’s Vegetation Treatment program aims to use fire suppression and tree brush cutting to prevent wildfires from burning, spreading out of control, and reducing the risk to life and property. In doing so, the agency seeks to promote native species biodiversity and protect clean water and soil health.

“California’s vegetation treatment program is an important tool for many people to combat the state’s devastating wildfire crisis,” Tony Anderson, executive director of the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, said in a statement. “We appreciate the months of collaborative work with the Chaparral Institute, the Endangered Habitat League, and others to find interim solutions that address their concerns.”

Crews clean up debris during the July 2023 Vector Fire in Santa Clarita.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

In California’s coniferous forests, this often looks like unnaturally high-density tree cutting and brush that fuels unusually intense fires.

But in Southern California, most forests are home to an ecosystem of shrubs, oaks, native grasses, and flowers, and the usual method is to cut fuel: long strips along ridgelines and roads devoid of all vegetation that could prevent ground fires and provide safe access for firefighters on the way to the fire. That can easily jump.

Severe and frequent wildfires have caused some areas to become chaparral with trees and some areas of chaparral to only flammable grass. The legal action claimed that the Cal Fire chaparral fires could cause this “type of conversion”.

When native chaparral is cleared from the landscape, whether by wildfire or through vegetation management projects, it is often not the native plants that grow back, but opportunistic fast-growing invasive weeds.

Calfire argued that its program addressed this in its environmental impact review. But the California Chaparral Institute and the Endangered Habitat League said the department didn’t take into account that these invasive grasses are more flammable than native species — meaning they increase the risk of fire.

The plant treatment program directs real work on the ground. So far this year, more than 5400 acres of work has been completed on 26 projects. About 13% of the work was in shrubs, such as chaparral.

Ecology organizations filed a petition in 2020, and in 2023 the San Diego Superior Court ruled for Cal Fire. The organizations appealed, and, in May 2025, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court and ordered it to determine how to resolve the issue.

On November 14, a lower court ordered Cal Fire to address the potential for species conversion to worsen wildfire risk and, until it does so, prohibits individual projects in the Vegetation Remediation Program from relying on the program’s environmental review to comply with California’s Environmental Quality Act.

The order does not apply to new fuel-cutting projects that are already planned to prevent the growth of combustible grasses, nor to maintain existing fuel breaks. Projects in forests and grasslands may also continue undisturbed, as may projects on land that has already lost trees or chaparral to change species.

Ecologists and fire officials ultimately have the same goals: reducing destructive wildfires and protecting native biodiversity. However, fires can destroy thousands of acres of native ecosystems—and the non-native ecosystems that plague the area can catch fire more easily.

But ecologists favor solutions to protect local ecosystems (such as programs that focus on reducing the chance of fires starting in the first place), while fire officials gravitate toward solutions that see vegetation as “fuel” for potential fires (such as cutting down vegetation to break down the fuel).

Fire officials argue that fuel breaks give crews a much-needed strategic advantage as they work to protect communities. However, some ecologists question whether the breaks even contribute to wildfires and whether fire departments are really staffed to break down the fuel during an emergency.

Those differences came into sharp focus as fire departments and land managers in the Santa Monica Mountains began a project in September to build a network of oil breaks across the region, thanks to a fast-track approval process created by Gov. Gavin Newsom and funding from the $10 billion climate bond that California voters approved last November.

As the board updates the program, “we’re taking stock of what’s working and making improvements,” Anderson said. The board works to find opportunities to “balance environmental and ecological protection with keeping communities and people safe. We can do both and the program is working to show how.”