In response to the growing wildfire crisis, the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection initiated the new statewide California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP) to achieve fire fuel treatment of 250,000 acres per year in the State Responsibility Area. An innovative Program EIR and project streamlining strategy were prepared to substantially streamline implementation of later activities consistent with CalVTP strategies for fire fuel reduction, fuel break development, and ecological restoration. Covered treatment activities include manual and mechanical treatments, prescribed burning, prescribed herbivory, and targeted herbicide application. The Program EIR defined environmentally protective Standard Project Requirements for treatment projects and a Project-Specific Analysis (PSA) checklist to expedite projects within the scope of the Program EIR.
With over 200 public agencies identified in the Program EIR as able to use this process, the Board followed the Program EIR with a training and implementation program to help them. This included training webinars, many tools to save time for agencies (such as templates of the PSA checklist, CEQA Findings, and MMRP), and a library of 15 example PSAs to use as models for different ecoregions and landscape settings. These tools and PSAs are posted on the Board’s CalVTP Program EIR website.
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2021 Outstanding Environmental Resource Document Award from AEP
“I commend the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection for working with the environmental community, state regulators, and public safety officials to develop a long-term solution to increase the pace and scale of critical vegetation treatment in a way that safely and responsibly protects our environment. The scale of the wildfire crisis in California is unprecedented, and we need a response to match the scale and severity of this challenge.”
–Governor Gavin Newsom
State of California
