California Air Resources Board Releases 2025 Natural and Working Lands Carbon Inventory
California Air Resources Board Releases 2025 Natural and Working Lands Carbon Inventory
February 11, 2026 – The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a state-of-the-science inventory of carbon stocks and carbon stock change from all lands in California, as well as harvested wood products. This release represents the most comprehensive estimate ever done of California’s carbon stocks in natural working lands, and also includes a supplemental report on the effects of wildfire and forest management on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon stock change. The inventory shows that even with catastrophic wildfires occurring more recently, the state’s natural and working lands have absorbed more carbon than they released since 2001, helping counterbalance emissions from those fires. In most years, emissions from wildfire were lower than rates of uptake due to net primary production. However, in 2008, 2020, and 2021, wildfire emissions greatly exceeded net uptake by trees, shrubs, plants, and grasses.
U.S. Department of Interior Launches U.S. Wildland Fire Service
U.S. Department of Interior Launches U.S. Wildland Fire Service
January 2026 – The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) established the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, which consolidates wildland fire management across the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Office of Aviation Services, Office of Wildland Fire, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to streamline wildfire prevention, response, and recovery efforts across public lands administered by DOI. The U.S. Wildland Fire Service works to reduce wildfire risk through proactive fuels management; create fire-resilient landscapes; advance wildland fire science and technology; promote fire-adapted communities; and respond to wildfires in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and Tribal, state and local partners.
The new service was created following Executive Order 14308, Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response, which directs federal agencies to streamline and modernize wildland fire management nationwide and the DOI Secretary’s Order 3443, Elevating and Unifying DOI’s Wildland Fire Management Program, which directs the establishment of U.S. Wildland Fire Service within the Interior Department. The service will provide wildland fire management on over 500 million acres of public and Tribal lands across the nation, employ 5,780 federal wildland fire personnel annually, and supports approximately 900 tribal wildland fire personnel.
CAL FIRE Launches Forest Health Education Campaign
CAL FIRE Launches Forest Health Education Campaign
February 17, 2026 – CAL FIRE launched a new 2026 forest health media and education campaign. The campaign is aimed at helping Californians better understand the role healthy forests play in mitigating the growing wildfire threat and highlights the actions we can take together to reduce risk and protect lives, communities, and natural resources. A key focus of the campaign is highlighting proactive forest management, including beneficial fire as well as the important role individuals play at home and in their communities to prepare for wildfire through home hardening and by creating and maintaining defensible space. To support wildfire resilience messaging and public awareness, the campaign includes a new toolkit that contains easily customizable graphics and copy for use on social media, banners, and billboards.
Governor’s January Budget Invests $457 Million in Wildfire and Forest Resilience
Governor’s January Budget Invests $457 Million in Wildfire and Forest Resilience
January 9, 2026 – The Governor’s proposed 2026–27 January Budget allocates $457 million to advance wildfire and forest resilience statewide, including $142 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and $315 million from Climate Bond funding. Due to auction proceeds from the November 2025 Cap-and-Invest auction coming in lower than anticipated, the proposal adjusts the GGRF continuous appropriation to $142 million, with funding prioritized to sustain key capacity, including grant administration staffing, 10 dedicated fuels crews for prescribed fire and fuel reduction, and continued grant support for healthy forests and fire prevention projects. Climate Bond investments will be distributed across CAL FIRE, the Department of Conservation, California State Parks, the California Conservation Corps, and state conservancies, supporting on-the-ground projects that reduce wildfire risk and strengthen community and landscape resilience.
Governor Signs Legislation Investing $170M for Wildfire Prevention
Governor Newsom Signs Legislation Investing $170 Million for California Conservancies to Prevent Catastrophic Wildfires
April 14, 2025 – Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100, which allocates over $170 million in accelerated funding to conservancies for forest and vegetation management across California. The bill also allocates $10 million to the Karuk Tribe to construct a first-of-its-kind Regional Fire Resiliency Center in northeastern Humboldt County. Funding to State conservancies includes:
• $30,904,000 to the Sierra Nevada Conservancy
• $23,524,000 to the California Tahoe Conservancy
• $31,349,000 to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
• $30,904,000 to the State Coastal Conservancy
• $30,904,000 to the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy
• $23,524,000 to the San Diego River Conservancy
In addition, Governor Newsom signed an executive order to ensure that the wildfire safety projects funded under AB 100 benefit from streamlining under a previous emergency proclamation issued in March.
See Progress on Protecting People and Communities from Wildfire
From day one, Governor Gavin Newsom declared community protection and wildfire resilience a top priority of his administration. California and its partners continue to deliver nation-leading results. Since taking office, the Governor has committed more resources and investments than ever before to significantly boost wildfire response capabilities while tackling the root causes of the wildfire crisis head-on.
Here are the top 5 things to know about California’s progress on protecting communities and landscapes from wildfire:
1. Historic Investments Making Big Impacts Statewide
- Invested $6 billion: Collectively, Task Force partners have increased wildfire resilience investments to more than $6 billion, with state investments surging to more than $4 billion since 2021.
- Doubled CAL FIRE resources: To support more effective wildfire response, CAL FIRE nearly doubled its fire protection staff since 2019 from 5,829 to 11,436 positions, and nearly doubled its fire protection budget from $2 billion to $3.8 billion.
- Added 2,400 firefighters: The Governor’s proposed investments will add 2,400 new firefighters to CAL FIRE’s firefighting force over the next five years.
- Boosted Cal OES: Since 2019, the budget of the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), a key agency in responding to and rebuilding after fires, increased from $1.8 billion to $4.5 billion.
2. Moving Faster without Compromising Environmental Protections
- Fast-tracking wildfire projects: Thanks to the Governor’s March 2025 emergency proclamation on wildfire, California has fast-tracked 300 projects in 300 days through a streamlined permitting system, with projects now being approved in as little as 30 days, saving a year or more of review and red tape for more complicated projects.
- Moving at record pace to support wildfire recovery: Immediately following the devastating Los Angeles firestorms, the Governor issued an executive order to suspend CEQA and Coastal Act permitting requirements to enable homeowners and businesses to rebuild without undue delay.
- Accelerating the use of good fire: In October 2025, the Governor signed an executive order to reduce red tape and expand tools to safely deploy beneficial fire projects. In the same month, the U.S. EPA issued policy guidance directing regional offices to work with local, state, tribal, and federal partners to remove barriers for prescribed fire.
3. Scaling Up Protection for Communities Facing Increasing Wildfire Risks
- Funding wildfire prevention at record-levels: Since 2019, CAL FIRE has awarded more than $570 million for more than 560 wildfire prevention projects across the state. Since 2023, the U.S. Forest Service has awarded more than $150 million across California to plan for and mitigate wildfire risk through community wildfire defense grants.
- Protecting structures and creating defensible space: CAL FIRE conducts defensible space inspections on more than 250,000 homes each year. In February 2025, Governor Newsom signed an executive order to further improve community hardening and wildfire mitigation, including accelerating Zone Zero regulations.
- Communities working together with nation-leading results: California leads the nation with more than 1,500 local Firewise USA communities.
4. On the Ground in California's Wildlands: Unprecedented Results in Record Time
- Launched more than 2,000 projects: California’s historic investments continue to pay off. State agencies have conducted over 2,000 landscape health and fire prevention projects.
- Treated more than 3.7 million acres: Collectively, Task Force partners treated over 3.7 million activity acres with state, federal, and local partners between 2021 and 2024, including over 1 million activity acres of treatments across 733,000 footprint acres in 2024.
- Nearly doubled prescribed fire: Prescribed fire treatments nearly doubled since 2021, with interagency partners now treating roughly 200,000 acres annually.
- Supported tribal stewardship: In September 2024, Governor Newsom signed SB 310, which supports tribal sovereignty by enabling California Native American tribes to conduct cultural burns on ancestral territories. In March 2025, the Karuk Tribe and the California Natural Resources Agency entered into a landmark cultural burning agreement as part of SB 310.
- Created emergency teams: State and federal partners have established 15 Emergency Forest Restoration Teams (EFRTs) across the state to rapidly restore private forestlands after fires.
- Awarded $620 million to forest health: Since 2021, CAL FIRE has committed more than $620 million in support of 120 wildfire and forest resilience projects through its Forest Health Grant Program.
- Built local capacity: The Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity (RFFC) program has awarded more than $140 million to communities across the state to create fire-adapted communities and landscapes.
5. Leveraging Technology to Increase Transparency and Improve Wildfire Prevention and Response
- Innovative tools for tracking progress: In 2023, the Task Force launched an Interagency Treatment Dashboard to display completed federal, state, local, and private vegetation management projects across the state. The Dashboard, provides transparency, tracks progress, facilitates planning, and informs firefighting efforts.
- Documenting effectiveness: CAL FIRE’s Fuels Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard spotlights and documents how recent wildfire resilience projects are protecting communities and landscapes when wildfire strikes.
- First-ever statewide LiDAR maps: In December 2025, California released the state’s first-ever statewide LiDAR maps, providing data on forest and vegetation conditions, enabling tribes, researchers, land managers, and community partners to incorporate the free data products into their own tools, models, and planning processes to inform wildfire resilience projects.
- Utilizing cutting-edge technology for fire response: CAL FIRE and Cal OES have also invested heavily in drones, satellite technology for advanced mapping, and AI-powered tools to spot fires quicker, and a Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System (FIRIS) to provide real-time mapping of wildfires. Additionally, CAL FIRE partnered with UC San Diego to support the development of ALERTCalifornia which utilizes AI to identify and monitor wildfires. ALERTCalifornia was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023.
See Highlights From a Busy Year for the Task Force
ADVANCEMENTS IN MEASURING PROGRESS
Interagency Treatment Dashboard Shows Progress Toward Resilience
The updated Dashboard shows three years of data with treatments on 700,000 acres in 2023 and prescribed fire acres more than doubling between 2021 and 2023.
New CAL FIRE Dashboard Shows Effectiveness of Fuels Treatments
The dashboard shows on-the-ground projects protecting communities and landscapes from recent wildfires.
New Webpage Brings Together California’s Wildfire and Landscape Resilience Monitoring and Assessment Programs
Centralized resource provides detailed information on California’s various monitoring and assessment programs to understand the complementary relationship between these efforts.
ABOUT THE TASK FORCE
The California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force was created by the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom to directly confront the near perfect storm of climatic and human-caused conditions that have brought the threat of devastating wildfire and its far-reaching effects to the doorstep of nearly everyone in our state, and beyond.
The Task Force is a collaborative effort to align the activities of federal, state, local, public, private, and tribal organizations to support programs and projects tailored to the priorities and risks of each region and bring the best available science to forest management and community protection efforts.
The critical work of the Task Force effects all Californians, and Task Force meetings offer an ideal opportunity for members of the press to hear directly from those involved in the comprehensive, coordinated efforts to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires and create safe communities while ensuring healthier, more sustainable natural environments.
MORE 2024 HIGHLIGHTS
California Passes Proposition 4 – Providing $1.5 Billion for Wildfire Resilience
The approval of Prop 4 is a major advancement for California to reach goals set in the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan.
U.S. Forest Service Completes Record Setting Year for Prescribed Fire
The U.S. Forest Service successfully treated over 72,000 acres with prescribed fire in California during the 2024 fiscal year.
Leading Researchers Share Science Synthesis to Drive California’s Actions to Improve Wildfire Resilience
At the December 13 meeting in Sacramento, a panel of scientists presented new findings to guide California’s efforts to respond to increasing wildfire risks in a changing climate.
Regional Meetings in San Diego and Lake Tahoe
Two regional meeting were held in 2024, along with two more in Sacramento. Hundreds of people came away from the meetings having learned new information, and having made new connections, and inspired to make positive change.
Join Us at our Upcoming Meetings
• March 27 & 28: Marin County
• June 6: Sacramento
• September 4 & 5: TBD
• December 12: Sacramento
SPREAD THE WORD IN 2025
Promote the Task Force in Your Communications
Task Force communications provides an important source of vital information that covers the combined effort of all organizations involved in landscape resilience and the prevention of wildfires in California. Please follow and share Task Force communications when you can.
Share the Task Force E-Newsletter
Do you know someone who will appreciate getting the latest progress from the Task Force? Click below to help others stay in the know.
CAL FIRE & USFS Investments Confront California’s Wildfire Crisis & Expand Urban Forests
CAL FIRE & USFS Investments Confront California’s Wildfire Crisis & Expand Urban Forests
October 17 – USFS Invests $15 Million to Confront California’s Wildfire Crisis
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced $100 million will be invested in 21 new projects to expand work on the USFS Wildfire Crisis Strategy to reduce the threat of wildfire in high-risk areas across the country. $15 million will fund three projects in California helping further Task Force goals of protecting communities in the Wildland Urban Interface.
- Sequoia National Forest – $5 million to reduce wildfire risk to the Breckenridge and Pine Flat communities through thinning and prescribed fire, with wood byproducts going to a biomass facility or the local sawmill when viable.
- Eldorado National Forest – $5 million for hazardous fuels reduction, strategic fuels breaks, and prescribed fire on the Georgetown Divide. The project will also create strategic fuel breaks near residential and commercial infrastructure in Volcanoville and Georgetown, including a high-powered electric transmission line.
- Tahoe National Forest – $5 million to reduce hazardous fuels, create defensible space around six communities, create safe ingress and egress along 6.3 miles of road, and engage at least seven partner groups, including local tribes.
September 20 – CAL FIRE and USFS Award $31 million to 22 Urban Forestry Projects in California
CAL FIRE and USFS announced nearly $31 million in Urban and Community Forestry grants in California focused on urban forestry topics of management, expansion and improvement, education, workforce development, capacity building, and green schoolyards. The projects are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the functionality of urban forests, arrest the decline of urban forest resources, address climate change resilience, improve the quality of the environment in urban areas, and increase access to environmental career pathways. All funded projects will directly serve priority populations within one or more defined disadvantaged and/or low-income communities in an urban area.
CAL FIRE Forest Health Research Grant Program: Applications are now open for the Forest Health Research Program which is offering $4 million in research funding through its FY 2024-2025 grant solicitation. These grants will support research that directly benefits landowners, resource agencies, fire management organizations, and decision-makers throughout the state.
New Website Offers a Deep Dive into Intentional Fire
New Website Offers a Deep Dive into Intentional Fire
July 25, 2024 – Intentionalfire.org, a new educational website from the Climate & Wildfire Institute, offers an immersive, interactive view into the use of intentional fire, including prescribed fire and cultural fire. The website provides concise and easy to understand information about the benefits and importance of intentional fire. It also features engaging audio and video clips, project case studies, and actionable steps for people to help advance intentional fire in their communities. Increased use of intentional fire is a critical component of California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire.