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.
Task Force Releases 2025 Key Deliverables
Task Force Releases 2025 Key Deliverables to Outline California’s Top Priorities Underway to Increase Wildfire Resilience
March 24, 2025 – The Task Force released its 2025 Key Deliverables, which include California’s top priorities and initiatives now underway to continue promoting wildfire and community resilience across the state.
The deliverables outline the highest priority actions underway this year to achieve the commitments in the 2021 Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan and to advance key new initiatives that will be highlighted in the forthcoming update of the Action Plan to be released later this year.
The deliverables focus on actions that will improve home and community wildfire resilience, expand landscape-scale resilience programs, streamline regulatory processes, expand timber production and more.
Task Force Director Patrick Wright provided an overview of the 2025 Key Deliverables during the Director’s Report at the March 27 Spring Region Meeting. Click under Resources to the see the video.
California Signs Cultural Burning Agreement with Karuk Tribe
California Advances Wildfire Resilience and Honors Tribal Sovereignty Through Cultural Burning Agreement with the Karuk Tribe
March 7, 2025 – The Karuk Tribe and the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) have entered into a historic agreement as part of CNRA and CalEPA’s announcement that SB 310 is now in effect. This legislation and agreement acknowledges tribal sovereignty and addresses historical injustices while contributing to the mitigation of catastrophic wildfire by enabling CNRA and local air districts to enter into agreements with federally recognized California Native American tribes to support them in conducting cultural burns in their ancestral territories. For more information, read the FAQ on SB 310.
CNRA will be hosting a webinar about the landmark cultural burn agreement with the Karuk Tribe and SB 310 on April 1, 2025 at 1pm.
State Coastal Conservancy Awards Nearly $6 Million For Wildfire Resilience Projects
State Coastal Conservancy Awards Nearly $6 Million For Wildfire Resilience Projects
- $250,000 to support Civicorps’ East Bay Wildfire Risk Reduction project for workforce development and vegetation removal in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
- $1,542,000 for the San Mateo County Critical Evacuation Corridors Wildfire Resilience Project to remove hazardous vegetation along two critical road evacuation corridors.
- $500,000 to implement the Garland Ranch Wildfire Resilience Project to thin 12 acres of eucalyptus trees and create a 6.2 acre shaded fuel break, maintain previously treated areas, collect data, and conduct community engagement in Monterey County.
- $1,626,000 to the U.S. Forest Service to treat approximately 24 miles of historic fuel breaks by removing vegetation along the Santa Lucia ridge line within the Los Padres National Forest to protect neighboring communities in Monterey County from catastrophic wildfire.
- $947,850 for Santa Barbara’s Wildfire Resilience Project to reduce wildland vegetation fuels acres, restore native species, and conduct community engagement.
- $1,131,700 for the Ascot Hills Resilience Project in Los Angeles to enhance 33 acres of habitat through the removal of invasive plants and planting of native plants to increase wildfire resilience.
RESOURCES
California Passes Proposition 4 — Providing $1.5 Billion for Wildfire Resilience
California Passes Proposition 4 — Providing $1.5 Billion for Wildfire Resilience
November 5, 2024 – Californians passed Proposition 4, the first-ever climate bond to go before California voters. The proposition provides $10 billion in bond funds for critical wildfire, flood protection, and other climate resilience projects around the state, including $1.5 billion for wildfire resilience. This funding will enable agencies to improve landscape health and resilience and protect communities from wildfire risks through programs such as the Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program. The funding also includes $50 million for long-term capital infrastructure projects that utilize wildfire mitigation waste for non-combustible uses.
In addition to funding wildfire resilience, $1.2 billion will be used to protect natural lands and preserve biodiversity, with $870 million directed to the Wildlife Conservation Board to help the state to meet its goal to protect 30% of lands by 2030. The approval of Proposition 4 is a major advancement for California’s efforts to increase the pace and scale of wildfire and landscape resilience treatments, adapt to a changing climate, and reach goals set in the California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan.
Interagency Treatment Dashboard Shows Progress Toward Resilience
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2024
California Unveils First-of-Their-Kind Dashboards Mapping Out Fire-Prevention Work to Protect Communities
New tools created by CAL FIRE and Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force simplify data, boost transparency, and help inform wildfire planning and response – adding to the suite of tools the state has created
(South Lake Tahoe, CA) – The Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) unveiled several new tools today to help California track and communicate the state’s significant progress in improving wildfire and landscape resilience.
Key takeaways from the Task Force’s Sierra Nevada Regional Meeting in South Lake Tahoe include:
• Interagency Treatment Dashboard updated to show 2021, 2022 and 2023 data.
• Over one million acres of treatments were conducted on about 700,000 footprint acres in 2023.
• Prescribed fire treatments more than doubled between 2021 and 2023.
• CAL FIRE Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard is showing the impact of treatments impacted by recent wildfires.
“Thousands of wildfire resilience projects have been completed across California to protect our communities and landscapes from catastrophic wildfire in recent years, and more are underway,” said Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency and co-chair of the Task Force. “Thanks to historic investments from our state and federal leaders, dozens of local agencies and hundreds of organizations are delivering these projects. Now for the first time, we have a dashboard that tracks all these diverse projects in one place and on one map. This enables us to measure our overall progress toward building wildfire resilience across the state and provides regional leaders valuable information to plan future projects.”
Interagency Treatment Dashboard
The updated version of the Interagency Treatment Dashboard shows wildfire resilience work (or “treatments”) for three calendar years (2021, 2022 and 2023). The data, which was sourced from federal, state, local, tribal, and private entities, is now available in a single hub that allows Californians to easily see where treatments (such as prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, and tree planting) have been completed. This information is used to inform firefighting efforts, ensure transparency to the public, and track progress toward statewide goals.
The Task Force released a Beta version of the Dashboard last year with 2022 data. This updated version now includes data for 2021, revised data for 2022, and new data for 2023.
Over 1 million acres worth of treatment work on 700,000 acres of land
The Dashboard shows significant progress on multiple fronts to bolster wildfire resilience in California. In 2023, more than one million acres of treatments were conducted on about 700,000 acres, with many acres receiving multiple treatments such as thinning, prescribed fire, or other practices to improve forest health and community resilience. The Task Force is tracking both “activity acres” – which reflect the level of effort conducted through various state, federal, and private programs – and “footprint acres” – which show the total geographic area treated in a calendar year.
The 2023 data shows a significant increase in acres treated since 2021. The increase is largely due to a significant expansion of prescribed fire treatments, which more than doubled since 2021. These efforts have put the state on a solid path toward meeting its joint commitment with the U.S. Forest Service to complete treatments on more than a million acres by the end of 2025.
The Task Force is committed to increasing the pace and scale of statewide actions to address California’s wildfire crisis. The Dashboard is part of a larger strategy to connect the various statewide entities committed to this monumental task.
Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard
CAL FIRE also launched a Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard, which shows how wildfire prevention projects are helping protect communities and landscapes when wildfire strikes. “Utilizing technology, we can now track in real time when wildfires hit areas where fuel treatments have been conducted. We can then go into an area and see how those treatments affected fire behavior, evacuation routes, firefighting efforts and more,” said CAL FIRE Chief/Director Joe Tyler. “This new dashboard is a tool for the public to see how fuels treatments had a positive impact on the firefight and how this work is making a difference.”
“No other state in the country is tackling wildfire resilience at this scale or with this level of innovation,” added U.S. Forest Service Deputy Regional Forester Kara Chadwick, who co-chaired today’s meeting. “From groundbreaking prescribed fire projects to comprehensive data tracking systems, we’re setting the standard for what it means to protect our landscapes and communities.”
The meeting is supplemented by field tours on October 8 and 11, to showcase wildfire resilience projects in the Tahoe Basin. Tour highlights include recovery efforts following the 2021 Caldor Fire, long-term prescribed burn projects in Sugar Pine Point State Park, meadow restoration at Máyala Wát undertaken by the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, and the first new industrial-scale sawmill built in Sierra Nevada in several decades.
“Today’s meeting is a major milestone in our efforts to better document and share our collective progress,” said Task Force Director Patrick Wright. “We will continue to build on our collective momentum to make California more resilient to wildfire.”
The next Task Force meeting will take place in Sacramento on December 13 and will provide a synthesis of the latest scientific findings that are informing California’s approach to address wildfire risks in a changing climate. These findings will be incorporated into the Task Force’s 2025 Action Plan Update.
Sky Biblin, Communications Coordinator
Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force
916-502-6527
California Protects 11,000 Acres of the Upper Trinity River Watershed
California Protects 11,000 Acres of the Upper Trinity River Watershed
August 5, 2024 – Pacific Forest Trust has purchased 11,000 acres of the Upper Trinity River watershed from a timber company and transferred it to the Watershed Research and Training Center as a conservation easement. This marks a major step in the state’s efforts to safeguard vital water resources, protect biodiversity, and conserve ecologically important landscapes.
The purchase was funded by state and federal agencies, including support from the Wildlife Conservation Board and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. The easement aligns with Task Force goals by assuring the property will be managed to mitigate extreme wildfire risk. It also demonstrates the critical intersection between efforts to promote wildfire resilience with enhancements of watersheds, wildlife habitats, as well as recreation and economic opportunities.
CNRA Webinar on the State of Wildfire in California
CNRA Webinar on the State of Wildfire in California
August 8, 2024 – California Natural Resources (CNRA) Secretary Wade Crowfoot hosted a webinar on the state of wildfire in California as part of the Secretary Speaker Series.
Secretary Crowfoot was joined by representatives from the Task Force, CAL FIRE, U.S. Forest Service, the Karuk Tribe, and others for a conversation on current efforts to protect California from dangerous wildfires and restore the health of our landscapes.
Nearly 39,000 Acres of Land Returned to California Tribes
Nearly 39,000 Acres of Land Returned to California Tribes
May 2024: The California Natural Resources Agency, in partnership with the CAL FIRE and the Ocean Protection Council awarded $107.7 million to fund 33 projects and support the return of approximately 38,950 acres of land to California Native American tribes through the Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program. Funding will support the return of ancestral lands to tribal ownership and stewardship, planning and implementation of habitat restoration projects, protecting our coast and oceans, advancing wildfire resiliency and cultural fire, and more multi-benefit nature-based solutions projects across California.
WATCH: Tribal Nature-Based Solutions Grant Program (YouTube)
UC ANR Provides a One-Stop-Shop for Continuing Forestry Education Through ‘California Tree School’
UC ANR Provides a One-Stop-Shop for Continuing Forestry Education Through ‘California Tree School’
May 2024: The UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) Forest Stewardship Education (FSE) program has been helping California’s forest landowners be proactive about the inevitable shifts their forestland will experience. The Forest Stewardship and Post-Fire Forest Resilience workshop programs utilize an online educational format, which guides landowners through the basics of creating forest management plans and managing post-fire landscapes.
The FSE team is piloting a new program to engage a wider audience of forest landowners and community members passionate about trees. This spring, the Forest Stewardship and UC ANR Fire Network teams are holding the first California Tree School, where individuals attend multiple in-person classes on forestry topics.