The Legislature hereby finds and declares:
(a) The department has extensive technical expertise in wildland fire prevention and vegetation management on forest, range, and watershed lands. When appropriately applied, this expertise can have significant public resource benefits by decreasing wildland fire hazards, increasing rangeland production, improving watershed yields, and increasing wildlife habitat.
(b) Because of limited fiscal resources, local government needs assistance in preventing future problems resulting from inadequate fire prevention planning and vegetation management.
(c) The state’s taxpayers will benefit if existing state expertise is made available to local governments, thereby eliminating the need for duplicating such services at the local level.