In the fire safety industry for over 30 years, Devin Doyle has operated Response Fire Supply (RFS) out of a Newport Beach, California headquarters. Owner of RFS since 2013, Devin Doyle ensures small businesses follow all state laws. In 2021, California passed a law defining a prescribed burn, its proper use, and consequences for negligence during the process.
A prescribed fire, also called good fire, uses a small fire to burn away excess dead vegetation. Such material serves as fuel for larger, spontaneous wildfires, the same kind that spread across California during summertime. If monitored closely, such fires serve as a powerful fire prevention tool. However, longstanding state and federal beliefs about fire prevention highly discouraged the practice, and such officials even trained indigenous peoples to follow settlers’ theories on fire prevention instead.
California state legislator Bill Dodd proposed the law, then called Senate Bill 332, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it on October 6, 2021. It defines prescribed burns as small fires used as a ceremonial or agricultural practice. It states that the setter is not liable for paying to extinguish a prescribed burn that goes out of control under certain conditions. This law not only addresses growing vegetation buildup in California’s forests but also eases property owners buying prescribed burn insurance. The law took effect on January 1, 2022.
