Governor Newsom Signs Executive Order to Expand Beneficial Fire Use

October 29, 2025 – Governor Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies to reduce red tape and expand tools to safely deploy beneficial fire projects. The order directs a suite of actions to fast-track critical work in the coming months with a key focus on directing state agencies to provide immediate on-the-ground support to local governments and fire practitioners to maximize use of beneficial fire, helping ensure that California does not miss the critical fall weather window to conduct prescribed and cultural burns. The order supports collaborative efforts to update beneficial fire permitting, address air quality concerns associated with smoke and enable resource conservation districts and other entities to carry out beneficial fire projects.

The executive order helps strengthen and build on California’s wildfire prevention strategy by:

• Accelerating funding and projects: Distributes funding to resource conservation districts and other eligible government agencies in advance of beneficial fire work, as well as creates more simplified grant funding processes.
• Expanding local participation: Removes policies and regulatory roadblocks that would make it more difficult for local agencies to engage in this work, including suspending the state law that prohibits resource conservation districts and volunteer fire departments from participating in the Prescribed Fire Liability Claims Fund Pilot Program.
• Working with tribal communities: Directs state agencies to continue prioritizing tribal consultation, access, collaboration, and co-management—so we can work together to expand and support cultural burning and other forms of tribal stewardship.
• Increasing education and data: Directs the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to create new modeling and related technologies, such as the Prescribed Fire Information Reporting System (PFIRS) and make this technology available to support air districts’ efforts to promote fast, efficient and low-cost permitting, and expands training opportunities for beneficial fire practitioners.
• Mitigating air quality risks: Increases collaboration and creates new best practices that provide beneficial fire practitioners consistent permitting and smoke management plan guidance while protecting public health and communicating potential smoke impacts to the public and create guidance for local communities.                                                                                                                                               
  

Building on nation-leading progress

The executive order builds on unprecedented progress already made by state, federal, tribal, local, and nonprofit partners to increase the pace and scale of beneficial fire implementation across the state. Key advancements include:

• The Task Force issued California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire (2022), a comprehensive roadmap to coordinate the efforts of state, federal, and tribal partners to treat up to 400,000 acres with beneficial fire annually by 2025.
• Prescribed fire treatments in California nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023. Federal, state, and local agencies completed 260,000 acres of prescribed fire treatments in 2023.
• In May, CAL FIRE, for the first time ever, met and exceeded its 50,000-acre goal for beneficial fire as outlined as a goal within the California Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire. This was accomplished even with the Park Fire in late 2024 and the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles.
• As of June, CARB, in close coordination with the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association, has held over 20 prescribed fire training sessions for stakeholders to discuss smoke management, public information, and tools and technology related to prescribed fire.
• In 2021, CARB released California Smoke Spotter — a critical tool to inform the public of air quality impacts from wildfire and prescribed fire smoke.
• The Governor and Legislature established a first-in-the-nation Prescribed Fire Liability Claims Fund in 2022 backed with $20 million in state funding, to accelerate beneficial fire on private lands by covering losses in the rare instance that a prescribed or cultural burn escapes control.
•  In September 2024, Governor Newsom signed SB 310, which reduces barriers for California Native American tribes to conduct cultural burns in their ancestral territories. The Karuk Tribe and the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) entered into the landmark SB 310 Cultural Fire agreement in February 2025. Out of this effort, the Tribe and CNRA have developed a template agreement for other tribes to utilize educational materials to support government-to-government collaboration in advancing cultural fire.
•  In September 2024, Governor Newsom signed SB 1101, which streamlines CAL FIRE’s contracting and procurement process to support beneficial fire.
•  In August 2023, the Governor’s Wildfire and Task Force launched an Interagency Treatment Dashboard that provides transparency on the location of completed beneficial fire projects.
• CAL FIRE’s Prescribed Fire Monitoring Program released the first version of a manual outlining field monitoring protocols in 2023 to assist land managers with unit selection, data collection, tools and technologies, data storage, and analysis procedures.