State Conservancies Award Nearly $14 Million of Climate Bond Funds for Wildfire Resilience Projects
State Conservancies Award Nearly $14 Million of Climate Bond Funds for Wildfire Resilience Projects
In April of 2025, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100 which allocated over $170 million in accelerated, or “early action” Climate Bond funding to conservancies for urgent forest and vegetation management across California. The California State Coastal Conservancy (Coastal Conservancy) and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) have moved quickly to ensure these funds are being distributed to enable progress on-the-ground.
November 20,2025 – Coastal Conservancy Awards Over $11 Million for Wildfire Resilience: The Board of the State Coastal Conservancy awarded over $11 million for ten projects that aim to reduce the risk and impact of catastrophic wildfires along the coast. Five of these projects received $9.4 million in accelerated funding from the Climate Bond (Prop 4).
- Esselen Tribe of Monterey County: $1,250,000 to plan and implement a series of cultural fire trainings that include live fire cultural burning operations on 50 to 500 acres of land.
- La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians: $2,900,000 to implement critical fuel reduction treatments and cultural burning on 516 acres along the Highway 76 corridor and to provide community fire preparedness training.
- Mendocino County Fire Safe Council: $803,000 to continue their free community chipping program, implement volunteer workdays, and develop a sustainability plan, over three years.
- University of California San Diego: $1,400,000 to remove Eucalyptus trees and restore the native chaparral ecosystem on a 30-acre site to improve wildfire resiliency and to serve as a biochar demonstration project.
- Sempervirens Fund: $3,050,000 to undertake the Big Basin Redwood Wildfire Resilience Project, consisting of vegetation fuels reduction and habitat enhancement on 215 acres in the old-growth coast redwood area of Big Basin Redwood State Park.
Additionally, five projects were awarded $1,665,000 in accelerated Climate Bond funding from the Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program.
December 12, 2025 – Sierra Nevada Conservancy Awards $4.6 Million in Wildfire and Forest Resilience Grants to Help Protect Communities: SNC’s Board approved three separate grants totaling nearly $4.6 million to fund projects that will reduce fuels and create fuel breaks in efforts to restore forest health and protect nearby communities from wildfire. The three grants from SNC’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Directed Grant Program will fund projects in Butte, Mono, and Madera counties.
California Unveils First-ever Statewide LiDAR Maps
California Unveils First-ever Statewide LiDAR Maps
December 12, 2025 – The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), in partnership with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), NASA Ames Research Center, and the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force announced the public release of consistent, statewide datasets on forest and vegetation conditions built from LiDAR, the gold standard for forest and vegetation information. This release is powered by the Wildfire, Ecosystem Resilience, and Risk Assessment Initiative (WERK) which has processed more than 100 million acres of LiDAR data across California. That total includes 40 million acres collected through CNRA’s use of $30M dedicated by the State Legislature for wildland remote sensing. For the first time, California has a single wall-to-wall picture of forest and vegetation conditions that is the highest resolution available and consistent across the entire state. Agencies, tribes, researchers, land managers, and community partners can begin incorporating the released products into their own tools, models, and planning processes immediately.
LiDAR (light detection and ranging) creates detailed three-dimensional maps of the landscape. Using LiDAR, the WERK initiative provides information on where trees and shrubs are, how tall and dense they are, where ladder fuels can carry fire into the canopy, and how much carbon is stored in vegetation. The statewide release includes 10-meter and 30-meter resolutions datasets that cover all of California. In addition, 1-meter datasets are already available in select areas, with statewide access to ultra-high resolution data launching in early 2026.
The WERK datasets are being hosted in partnership with the Wildfire Science & Technology Commons at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, supported by the National Science Foundation. These products will also be incorporated into the Task Force’s California Landscape Metrics beginning with the next data refresh.
CAL FIRE Awards Over $62 Million in Wildfire Prevention Grants
CAL FIRE Awards Over $62 Million in Wildfire Prevention Grants
December 12, 2025 – CAL FIRE announced it will award nearly $62.6 million in funding for 84 local wildfire prevention projects across the state, including 41 projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities. CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Prevention Grants enable local organizations like fire safe councils to implement activities that reduce wildfire risk to communities. Funded activities include hazardous fuel reduction, wildfire prevention planning, and wildfire prevention education. These projects reach all corners of the state, including:
- Siskiyou County: The Shasta Valley Resource Conservation District will implement wildfire prevention efforts on the McCloud Fuels Management and Forest Stewardship Project, which proposes 375 acres of treatment including 200 acres of mastication and thinning and 175 acres of ridgeline shaded fuel break.
- Riverside County: the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians will reduce hazardous fuels (saltcedar) on 223 acres of tribal lands. The project will reduce dust and wildfire fuel loads by removing saltcedar using root plowing and chipping.
- Los Angeles County: The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments is one of many organizations receiving funding towards wildfire prevention efforts. Their project will work towards developing a Regional Wildfire Protection Plan that will help to protect over 31 cities and communities, 22 of which are identified as “Communities at Risk.”
These projects all meet the goals and objectives of California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, as well as the Strategic Fire Plan for California. Over the last six years, CAL FIRE has awarded more than $566 million in its Wildfire Prevention Grants Program to over 575 projects across the state. A full list of the 2025/2026 Wildfire Prevention Grant recipients is available here.
Watershed Research and Training Center and Sierra Business Council Release Wildfire Resilience Workforce & Career Development Roadmap
Watershed Research and Training Center and Sierra Business Council Release Wildfire Resilience Workforce & Career Development Roadmap
November 25, 2025 – The Watershed Research and Training Center and Sierra Business Council released Advancing Wildfire Resilience Workforce & Career Development, a nonprofit-led roadmap recommending how California can grow and sustain the skilled workforce needed to protect communities and restore healthy landscapes in the face of wildfire. Developed in coordination with the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force, this roadmap outlines how the state can strengthen its wildfire resilience efforts by investing in the people and organizations driving this critical work. Key recommendations in the roadmap include:
• Building education, training, and professional development pipelines.
• Supporting high-quality, well-paying jobs with clear career pathways.
• Pairing wildfire resilience investments with workforce capacity investments statewide, including urban, rural, and Tribal communities.
• Removing barriers to recruit, train, and retain a robust wildfire resilience workforce.
By integrating solutions to two of California’s most pressing challenges—wildfire risk and economic opportunity—this roadmap charts a path toward both community safety and statewide prosperity.