Fire safe groups urge Paradise to expand grazing and prescribed burning tools

Local fire‑safety organizations on Tuesday urged Paradise council members to broaden the set of tools available for fuels reduction — including professionally run prescribed burns and expanded grazing — saying the moves would speed up treatments and lower cost across the ridge.

The presentation was given by Jim Broshears, the town’s emergency operations coordinator and longtime Butte County Fire Safe Council board member, Taylor (executive director of the Fire Safe Council) and Dallas Koehler of the Butte County Resource Conservation District, who runs the Butte Prescribed Burn Association (PBA). The groups said reintroducing fire at appropriate scales and increasing grazing could increase landscape resilience and help meet the region’s average fire return interval.

"We need to return more grazing and more fire to the environment," Broshears told council. He emphasized that prescribed burns must be planned and conducted under fire‑department oversight and the right safety conditions. Dallas Koehler described the volunteer‑led PBA’s…