(a) It is declared by the General Assembly that prescribed burning is a resource protection and land management tool which benefits the safety of the public, Georgia's forest resources, the environment, and the economy of the state. The General Assembly finds that:

(1) Prescribed burning reduces naturally occurring vegetative fuels within forested areas. Reduction of such fuels by burning reduces the risk and severity of major wildfire, thereby lessening the threat of fire and the resulting loss of life and property;

(2) Georgia's ever-increasing population situates urban development directly adjacent to fire prone forest lands. The use of prescribed fire to manage fuels in interface areas would substantially reduce the threat of damaging wildfire in urban communities;

(3) Forest land constitutes significant economic, biological, and aesthetic resources of state-wide importance. Prescribed burning on forest land serves to reduce hazardous accumulations of fuels, prepare sites for both natural and artificial forest regeneration, improve wildlife habitat, control insects and disease, and perpetuate fire dependent ecosystems;

(4) State and federally owned public use lands such as state parks, state and national forests, and wildlife refuges receive resource enhancement through use of prescribed burning;

(5) As Georgia's population continues to grow, pressures from liability issues and smoke nuisance complaints cause prescribed burn practitioners to limit prescribed burn activity, thus reducing the above-mentioned benefits to the state;

(6) Public misunderstanding of the benefit of prescribed burning to the ecological and economic welfare of the state exerts unusual pressures that prevent uninhibited use of this valuable forest resource management tool; and

(7) Fire benefits rare, threatened, and endangered plants, deer, turkey, quail, dove, and other game as well as numerous songbirds and other nongame species by the increased growth and yields of herbs and legumes. It also allows openings for feeding and travel.

(b) It is the purpose of this part to authorize and promote the continued use of prescribed burning for community protection, silvicultural, environmental, and wildlife management purposes.