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Parks department reports land-management plan progress: prescribed burns, shaded fuel breaks and community outreach
Summary
Parks and Recreation reported progress on the Land Management Program, including prescribed burns, pile-burns and shaded fuel-breaks, and discussed priorities for vegetation management contracts, community notification and partnerships such as the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps.
Parks and Recreation staff briefed the Climate, Water, Environment and Parks Committee on the city’s Land Management Program, the department’s wildfire-risk and ecosystem-restoration priorities, and recent implementation work.
Assistant Director Jody Jay introduced program manager Matt McCall and Division Manager Amanda Ross, who described the land-management plan adopted by council and subsequent activity. McCall said the city manages roughly 13,000 acres of natural-area parkland in scattered parcels and that many areas are degraded after decades of human activity. He said the department adopted a two-pronged strategy of active ecological restoration and targeted fuel mitigation near structures and park edges.
McCall reported that in fiscal year 2024 Parks implemented about 576 acres of broadcast prescribed burns across seven burn days and conducted five pile-burn operations to remove nearly 800 piles of hazardous fuels. He said prescribed fire is often the most cost-effective tool where it is appropriate, but that some areas require upfront mechanical treatments before fire can be used safely.
The department described its project-prioritization criteria (staffing, site access, contracts and funding) and the importance of community involvement and research partnerships. Parks said it is implementing new vegetation-management contracts for broad restoration and for targeted fuel-mitigation work near neighborhoods; one contract was approved by council in recent weeks and another is planned for upcoming council consideration.
Committee members asked about notification for prescribed burns, analysis of vulnerability and how often risk mapping should be updated. Staff said notification uses curated contact lists, email and signage; door hangers and direct mail are used less often because they are difficult to sustain. Staff acknowledged that forecasting weather and conditions makes burn schedules subject to short-notice ‘go’ decisions and said they are working to improve public dashboards and communications with neighborhood associations and city dispatch systems such as 311.
On operational questions staff said the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps has participated in training and burn operations, that goats can be a useful supplementary tool for targeted vegetation removal but are not a large-scale solution, and that the department is evaluating budget needs for 2026–27 through the regular budget process.
McCall said some technical tools — including vulnerability mapping that supports prioritization — were designed to be updatable but that computational and staffing constraints have limited routine updates; staff said improving that capacity is a program priority.
