Managing Wildfire Risk in Southern California's Chaparral Landscapes. California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force, February 6, 2025, updated October 22, 2025.
"Southern California's chaparral-dominated ecosystems suffer from too much fire. Therefore, fuel treatments such as prescribed fire are generally not appropriate as a landscape-level tool to reduce wildfire risks as more frequent fires lead to the conversion of chaparral into more flammable non-native grasses, which creates even greater fire risk. Accordingly, primary wildfire resilience tools in Southern California communities near chaparral are preventing ignitions; hardening structures and communities; and strategic fuel breaks."
On wind-driven fire, the piece quotes Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy: "You could have put a 10-lane freeway in front of that fire and it would not have slowed it one bit."
Why we're sharing it
This is the state's own account of what lowers fire risk where we work. Defensible space around structures and maintained fuel breaks in the right places. Clearing whole hillsides makes the next fire worse. Read it before you decide what to cut on your land.
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Shared with credit to the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force.
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