The California Farm Bureau is backing a new measure to track the health and economic impacts of wildfire smoke on the state’s population.
The issue came to light for many policymakers in 2018, when the devastating Camp Fire destroyed much of the town of Paradise and sent smoke billowing into Sacramento for two weeks. Wildfire haze engulfed many more Californians in 2020, when a series of extreme fires blanketed the Central Valley and several coastal cities with hazy air for months.
As the new climate reality has unfolded, the state has struggled to craft a strategic, multiagency response to the smoke issues, according to Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil of Jackson. She filed a measure last week that aims to bridge the silos and build a more collaborative approach to the research effort. The goal is to better track the air pollution, monitor exposure in communities and investigate cases when human health is adversely affected.
Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, D-JacksonAlvarado-Gil noted that nearly 10 million acres in California have burned in the last five years—“a direct result of years of mismanaged forest and wildland strategies that have created a new reality for California.” The faster and hotter fires have exposed residents to smoke hundreds of miles away and added a new level of financial and emotional uncertainty for the businesses and schools forced to shut down.
“Ensuring the well-being of our communities means understanding the true impact of wildfire smoke,” said Alvarado-Gil, in a statement announcing Senate Bill 945. “Our bill aims to unveil the impacts on our population, emphasizing the urgent need to address forest health for a resilient and healthier California.”
With a background in school administration, Alvarado-Gil, a Democrat, represents a large swath of rural communities in the foothills and mountains of the northern Sierra Nevada. She took office last year, flipping the seat after conservative Republican Jim Nielsen represented the district for more than a decade and termed out of office in 2022.
Like Nielsen—and many other lawmakers representing rural districts—Alvarado-Gil has been thrust into a new policy realm surrounding wildfire issues.
While state and federal agencies have pumped billions of dollars into combatting and preventing fires in recent years, a property insurance crisis has emerged, triggering another policy race to curb an alarming trend. In 2021 the California Farm Bureau sponsored legislation to help farms and ranches find basic coverage after losing their policies, and it followed up with a bill in 2023 to move more of those policies back into the standard insurance marketplace. The farm group has also engaged with lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a deal to keep insurance companies operating in California, with new regulations anticipated this year.
Wildfires—and the subsequent smoke—have led to other unanticipated consequences for industry. For winegrape growers, smoke taint has impacted prices and in 2020 led to significant losses. The bad air has also shortened the lives of sheep and cattle and threatened the health of farmworkers.
It’s easy to be “in the know” about agriculture news from coast to coast! Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news. Simply click here.
“Farming and ranching communities have been hit directly by wildfire smoke,” said California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass, in a joint statement with Alvarado-Gil. “At a time when state and federal governments, including private landowners, are making substantial investments to mitigate wildfire hazards in our forests and woodlands, it is imperative that policymakers understand how neglecting to invest in our wildfire-prone communities can impact health outcomes—from bringing on respiratory illnesses to pregnancy complications—across the state’s population.”
Driving Alvarado-Gil’s call for a legislative fix was a report released in September by the California Council on Science and Technology and the conservation group Blue Forest. The peer-reviewed study found that improving forest health can reduce the risk of catastrophic fires while benefiting the health of Californians. The researchers detailed a need to better connect the health sector to local, state and federal agencies engaged in forest restoration.
“We have an opportunity we shouldn’t squander to lay the foundation for greater collaboration between the health sector and governmental air and land managers,” said Jennifer Montgomery, chair of the study’s steering committee and former director of a forest management task force under Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Steps taken now on wildfire smoke impacts will pay future dividends in our responses to—and preparation for—other natural disasters.”
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
