SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – The Santa Barbara County Fire Department and Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District announced changes that will go into effect today affecting permitted pile burns. Pile burns are permitted by the County Fire Department and fall into three categories: Agricultural, Hazard Reduction, and Residential Backyard. Permitted pile burns are different from prescribed burns; prescribed burns involve standing vegetation and are performed by land managers, including fire agencies.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Santa Barbara County Fire Department has tentatively approved a prescribed Range Improvement Burn to occur at Righetti Ranch south of Orcutt between Highways 101 and 135. The burn window will start on October 24 and last through the middle of November. The goal of this scheduled one-day burn is to improve rangeland and to reduce the risk of wildfire. Prescribed, or planned, fires typically burn less intensely than wildfires. Prescribed burns can help prevent the spread of wildfires, and can reduce impacts to watersheds that can result in soil loss and sedimentation.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Santa Barbara County Fire Department, in conjunction with UCSB’s Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, has tentatively scheduled a one-day Prescribed Burn at UCSB Lagoon near Campus Point with a burn window from August 6 through August 10. This one-day burn is part of ongoing management effort to control non-native grasses and establish native bluff scrub vegetation. Building on successful past burns, this treatment will be conducted on a day within the burn window with the least amount of fog in order to generate enough heat to reduce the viability of the non-native seed bank, and on a day with the best conditions for dispersion.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Los Padres National Forest has tentatively scheduled a Prescribed Burn at Figueroa Mountain by the Pino Alto Day Use Area with a burn window through March 1. The goal of the series of one-day burns is to reduce the risk of wildfire. Prescribed, or planned, fires typically burn less intensely than wildfires. Prescribed burns can help prevent the spread of wildfires, and can reduce impacts to watersheds that can result in soil loss and sedimentation.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Santa Barbara County Fire Department has tentatively scheduled a Prescribed Burn at 5555 Santa Maria Mesa Road with a burn window through October 31. The goal of this one-day burn is to reduce the risk of wildfire. Approximately 209 acres of grassland and Venturian Coastal Sage Scrub will be burned. The burn is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. and conclude at 6 p.m. on a permissive burn day. Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) staff have reviewed the Santa Maria Canyon Smoke Management Plan and provided conditions to minimize smoke impacts in Santa Barbara County. The burn will be conducted when the meteorological conditions are highly favorable to direct smoke away from population centers.