CAL FIRE Awards Nearly $10 Million to Support Tribal Wildfire Resilience and Boost Forestry Workforce
CAL FIRE Awards Nearly $10 Million to Support Tribal Wildfire Resilience and Boost Forestry Workforce
August 1, 2025 – CAL FIRE awarded nearly $4.7 million through its Tribal Wildfire Resilience Program to support six tribes and tribal non-profits in implementing projects on tribal, federal, and private lands. These grants focus on cultural fire, workforce training, fuels reduction, reforestation, land stewardship, and other efforts that promote wildfire resilience and safety for tribal communities. The funding also supports the use and promotion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge to help California Native American tribes manage their ancestral lands.
August 18, 2025 – CAL FIRE announced $5 million in grant funding through its Business and Workforce Development Grant program to eight projects that will create jobs, train future forestry workers, and help small businesses expand their role in protecting California’s forests and communities from wildfire. Together, these eight projects will train more than 300 people, create or retain dozens of jobs, and increase the capacity to treat thousands of acres per year.
Six Months After the LA Fires, California Continues Unprecedented Recovery Campaign
Six Months After the LA Fires, California Continues Unprecedented Recovery Campaign
July 7, 2025 – On the six month anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, Governor Newsom announced the substantial completion of the public debris removal program from more than 10,000 fire damaged parcels. The near-completion of the public debris removal program comes months ahead of schedule. The LA Fires cleanup is the second largest in state history after the Camp Fire and was jointly managed by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) and United States Army Corps of Engineers, in partnership with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as well Los Angeles County and City of Los Angeles. Of the 12,048 total properties destroyed in the twin fires, 9,873 opted to participate in the cost-free public cleanup program.
Following cleanup, the Governor signed Executive Order N-29-25 to accelerate rebuilding homes and schools impacted by the fires by suspending local permitting laws and building codes. To further spur rebuilding the Governor and the California Department of Housing and Community Development announced the release of $101 million to help rapidly rebuild critically needed, affordable multifamily rental housing in the fire-devastated LA region.
CAL FIRE Releases Vegetation Burn Severity Online Viewer
CAL FIRE Releases Vegetation Burn Severity Online Viewer
July 15, 2025 – CAL FIRE’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP) released the California Vegetation Burn Severity Online Viewer, a public geospatial tool that displays burn severity data for wildfires across all land ownerships that burned at least 1,000 acres in California from 2015 to 2023. In accordance with Senate Bill 1101, FRAP developed this viewer to enhance public understanding of post-fire conditions and ecological impacts. It offers insight into the severity of impacts to vegetation across both forested and non-forested landscapes. The viewer will support post-fire recovery planning, inform habitat management and conservation efforts, enhance safety through insights for fire suppression planning, and improve preparedness by helping prescribed fire practitioners plan treatments based on past burn severity and fuel changes. Users can view fire perimeters, severity maps, and proportional area statistics for each fire. The viewer will be updated annually to include new fires under 1,000 acres.
Governor Signs $325B Budget with Negotiations on Wildfire & Forest Resilience Items Continuing into the Summer
Governor Signs $325B Budget with Negotiations on Wildfire & Forest Resilience Items Continuing into the Summer
On June 27, Governor Newsom signed the Budget Act of 2025 which the California Legislature passed on June 13. It is expected that budget-related negotiations will continue into the summer with budget trailer bills voted on before the close of the legislative session on September 12. Specific natural resource highlights of this budget include:
- Approving the Cap and Invest May Revision Finance Letter with a $1 billion fund shift in 2025-26 for CAL FIRE operations and the remaining Greenhouse Gas Reduction (GGRF) dollars to be appropriated later.
- Adopting intent language to fund shift future GGRF revenue to CAL FIRE baseline operations if a General Fund deficit exists, including: $1.25 billion in 2026-27, $500 million in 2027-28, and $500 million in 2028-29. If a deficit does not exist, $500 million in 2026-27 shall still be fund shifted.
- Deferring reauthorization of the State’s Cap and Invest program to the summer, along with further allocations of funds derived from the program.
- $12.5 million from the General Fund for a new community home hardening program consisting of $9.5 million for the Wildfire County Coordinator Program and $3 million for a new home hardening certification program under the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
- $10 million from the General Fund, for incarcerated individuals who serve in the Conservation (Fire) Camp Program. This program provides a workforce for suppression and other conservation work.
- Transitioning 3,000 seasonal firefighter positions to permanent (year-round) positions, phased over three years.
CAL FIRE Awards Forest Health and Research Grants and Opens Solicitation of Wildfire Prevention Grants
CAL FIRE Awards Forest Health and Research Grants and Opens Solicitation of Wildfire Prevention Grants
June 5, 2025 – Nearly $72 Million Awarded to Landscape-Scale Forest Health Projects: CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program has awarded $72 million to 12 grants to local and regional partners carrying out projects on state, local, tribal, federal, and private lands. Funded projects will employ a wide array of forest management strategies, with goals of wildfire resilience, watershed protection, habitat conservation for endangered species, recovery of fire-scarred and drought-impacted forests, and the reintroduction of fire as a natural ecological process. Several of the funded projects also include community outreach and long-term strategic planning through the California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP); three-fourths of the awarded projects will benefit disadvantaged or low-income communities.
June 27, 2025 – $5.9 Million Awarded to Support Cutting-Edge Scientific Research: CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Research Program has awarded $5.9 million to support 15 scientific research studies that are expected to increase our understanding of relatively understudied vegetation types like chaparral, mountain meadows, and oak woodlands; strengthen frameworks for evaluating costs and benefits of fuel treatment strategies; and expand cutting-edge tools for forest monitoring and prescribed fire planning.
June 25, 2025 – Up to $135 Million is Available for Wildfire Prevention Projects: On June 25, CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Prevention Grants Program announced the solicitation for projects in and near fire threatened communities to improve public health and safety. Project types include hazardous fuels reductions, wildfire prevention planning, and wildfire prevention education. The deadline for applications is August 6.
RESOURCES
May Revise Budget Proposes Extending Cap-and-Trade and Shifting $1.5 Billion for Wildfire
May Revise Budget Proposes Extending Cap-and-Trade and Shifting $1.5 Billion from GGRF for Wildfire Prevention and Protection
The May Revision of the Governor’s budget proposes an extension of the Cap-and-Trade program that is best captured in a renaming of the program to the Cap-and-Invest program and enshrined in clear guiding principles that enable a stable and predictable price on carbon pollution to drive deeper investments in carbon reduction and clean technologies.
The May Revision proposes to shift $1.54 billion from the General Fund to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to support CAL FIRE’s fire prevention, fire control, and resource management activities on an ongoing basis. This proposal aligns with the polluter-pays principle in which carbon emitters will fund the state’s world-class forestry and fire protection programs in the face of wildfires that have become increasingly destructive because of climate change. The proposal also includes a General Fund backstop to protect CAL FIRE’s operations in the event Cap-and-Invest auction proceeds fall below projected revenues. To address the projected budget shortfall, the May Revision includes General Fund solutions to achieve a balanced budget, including a reversion of $31.5 million General Fund appropriated for the acquisition of property for a new CAL FIRE training center. CAL FIRE is exploring more cost-effective alternatives that will meet the same training capacity goals as the new additional training center project through a combination of expanding and upgrading existing training facilities and utilizing newly identified long-term lease opportunities to minimize delays in training output.
Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition Publishes 2024 Annual Report
Report Highlights Significant Advances in Emergency Wildfire Recovery, Research and Restoration
Officials from the State of California, USFS, National Park Service, Tule River Indian Tribe of California, Save the Redwoods League and other members of the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition (GSLC) recently announced significant progress in their work to protect the largest trees on Earth from extreme wildfires. In its 2024 progress report, the GSLC confirms coalition partners have, since 2022, conducted restoration activities in more than half of the world’s sequoia groves and planted more than 617,000 native trees.
First Set of Projects Fast-tracked as Part of Governor’s Emergency Proclamation on Wildfire
CNRA and CalEPA Identify First Set of Fast-tracked Projects as Part of Governor’s Emergency Proclamation on Wildfire
New Streamlined Process:
Governor Newsom issued an Emergency Proclamation (Proclamation) on March 1, 2025, to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires that threatens public safety across California. The Proclamation authorizes the Secretaries of the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) and the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to determine which projects are eligible for suspension of certain State of California statutory and regulatory requirements to expedite critical fuels reduction projects, while at the same time protecting public resources and the environment. The Task Force has established a website that includes eligibility criteria, FAQs, and a link to the application to request a determination of eligibility for suspension of relevant State of California statutory and regulatory requirements. The Secretaries also hosted a virtual briefing on the Proclamation and the process.
First Set of Approved Projects:
Just one week after applications opened, CNRA and CalEPA identified a 450-acre collaborative wildfire resilience project in Humboldt County as the first project to be determined eligible for streamlining. Three projects totaling 882 acres have been approved to date, spanning from the northern California coast to Sierra Nevada Mountains and all the way down to San Diego. Each of these projects involve tribes and other partners, natural resource managers and fire districts. Here is an overview of the first set of approved projects.
- The Prosper Ridge Community Wildfire Resilience Project in Humboldt County is the first approved project under the Governor’s emergency proclamation on wildfire. This collaborative state, federal, and tribal project will treat nearly 450 acres with a combination of mechanical thinning, manual treatments, and prescribed fire.
- The Sycuan Wildfire Resiliency Project covers over 240 acres in San Diego County and aims to protect the Sycuan Reservation from wildfire by reducing fire hazard, ensuring defensible space, and providing safe egress with the use of 300 grazing goats.
- Vedanta Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project will reduce wildfire risk, improve forest health and enhance landscape resilience within the WUI, reducing risk of crown fires spans across 190 acres near Lake Tahoe.
These projects are focused on removing flammable dead or dying trees, creating strategic fuel breaks, creating safe egress along roadways, manual and mechanical removal of ladder fuels and beneficial fire use. Approved project location maps and documentation will be made available on the Task Force website.
Rancheria Celebrates Achievement as the State’s 1,000th Firewise Community
Table Mountain Rancheria Celebrates Achievement as the State’s 1,000th Firewise Community During Wildfire Preparedness Week
Table Mountain Rancheria, located in Fresno County, has been announced as the 1,000th Firewise USA® community in the state during this year’s Wildfire Preparedness Week celebration. This recognition by the National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA®) highlights the commitment the community has taken to ensure that wildfire risk is reduced and that residents are prepared. Governor Newsom declared May 4-10 as “Wildfire Preparedness Week” with the theme, “Building a Fire-Ready Future: Strengthening Our Defenses, Together,” to emphasize the importance of both collaborative efforts and individual responsibility in reducing and managing wildfire risk. CAL FIRE’s readyforwildfire.org website hosts an array of preparedness resources.
CARB Publishes Annual Report on California Climate Investments
CARB Publishes Annual Report on California Climate Investments as Governor Newsom and California Legislature Seek Extension of Cap-and-Trade Program
May 7, 2025 –
Annual Report on California Climate Investments:
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) published its annual report on California Climate Investments using Cap-and-Trade proceeds. According to the report, nearly $33 billion has been raised from Cap-and-Trade to fund climate solutions in communities across the state; of this amount, $12.8 billion projects have been implemented under 117 programs administered by 27 agencies. Along with the report, CARB released a general fact sheet documenting cumulative project achievements through November 2024 including $1.5 billion invested in wildfire prevention, forest health and prescribed burning activities and 1.6 million acres of land conserved or restored.
Extension of Cap-and-Trade Program:
Prior to the report’s publication, Governor Newsom, Senate President pro Tempore McGuire and Assembly Speaker Rivas announced they will seek an extension of the Cap-and-Trade Program during this legislative year. The program is currently set to expire in 2030 and requires extension by the Legislature. As the Governor noted in his proposed budget, extending the program this year can provide the market with greater certainty, attract stable investment, further California’s climate leadership and set the state on a clear path to achieve its 2045 carbon-neutrality goal.