The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking action to minimize wildfire risk across the country, seeking to ensure that fire-prone areas are not disadvantaged due to stringent regulations that thwart wildfire prevention efforts.

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin asked staff to “revisit the Obama-Biden Administration’s Exceptional Events rulemaking and prioritize the allowance of prescribed fires within State and Tribal Implementation Plans,” the agency said in a March 12 statement. The exceptional events rule is related to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

NAAQS defines the maximum allowable concentration of pollutants in outdoor air. States and tribal localities develop air quality implementation plans that help them attain or maintain NAAQS standards. However, events such as wildfires and volcanic eruptions can end up worsening air quality and push states and tribal areas into violating NAAQS through no fault of their own.

The exceptional events rule helps deal with the issue. Under the rule, events deemed to be exceptions, such as wildfires and prescribed fires, may not be taken into consideration when assessing whether states or tribal localities are in violation of NAAQS air quality standards.

Prescribed fires, also known as controlled burns, refer to applying fire in a planned manner to reduce flammable fuels in the region, which in turn lowers the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

However, there are “unnecessary burdens” related to the exceptional events rule and other regulations that pose challenges when it comes to implementing prescribed fire plans, the EPA suggested in the recent statement. The latest directive is aimed at dealing with the issue.

Revisiting such rulemaking “will ensure that EPA doesn’t get in the way of making preventative efforts like prescribed burns easier to protect communities,” said Zeldin.

From now on, when EPA reviews air quality plans, the agency will seek to ensure they can “use prescribed fires to properly manage their forests, without being unfairly penalized when it comes to assessing their air quality,” according to the statement.

Zeldin has instructed the EPA Office of Air and Radiation to set up meetings with state and tribal air agencies as well as other authorities to “evaluate ways to ease unnecessary burdens that prevent prescribed fires,” EPA said.

The announcement comes following the destructive fires in Los Angeles that decimated over 16,000 homes and buildings.

The fires led to the EPA’s “largest wildfire hazardous material removal effort in its history.” Prescribed fires are crucial to protect communities from “catastrophic wildfires like the ones that caused untold damage to residents and businesses in Los Angeles,” the agency said.

Zeldin said the Trump Administration “is tackling our emergency response duties head on and taking action to reduce the likelihood of these devastating disasters in the future.”

California Wildfires

According to a Feb. 5 report by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the Jan. 7 wildfires that led to the devastation in Los Angeles were caused by “extensive drought conditions” and high winds.

Almost 200,000 residents had to evacuate the region, with the fires causing billions of dollars in economic losses, it said.

Beginning in spring 2023, the Los Angeles region experienced alternating periods of wet conditions that facilitated rapid growth of vegetation, followed by dry conditions.

“In southern California, this whiplash effect led to an abundance of dry and very flammable vegetation,” the post said. However, “long-term dry conditions were not the only drivers of the 2025 California fires. Between 5 and 8 January 2025, a large high-pressure system formed over the Great Basin, an arid desert region, whilst pressure fell over northwestern Mexico.”

“Strong pressure gradients developed, resulting in a stream of exceptionally dry air, known as Santa Ana winds, rushing towards southern California, creating conditions that enabled the rapid spread of flames.”

In an interview with The Epoch Times last year, Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the agency uses prescribed burns to get rid of dry fuel beds and clear up forest floors.

However, the high timber ecosystems of the upper Sierra region have not been subjected to fires for years, which led to wildfires in California’s foothills and mountains, she said.

Prior to European settlement in California, the native tribes often carried out controlled burns in wildlands and forests, a practice that was outlawed in 1850.

“Those timber systems are fire-adapted, and they have what they call a ‘natural fire return interval,’ which is when, often, a natural fire would start from lightning,” Freeman said, adding that this cycle occurs every seven to 12 years.

On March 1, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency to fast-track forest management projects to deal with the issue of wildfires.

The proclamation suspends environmental regulations for projects such as prescribed fire. It also directs state agencies to “submit recommendations for increasing the pace and scale of prescribed fire.”

Summer Lane contributed to this report.