Communities throughout Southern California will get the majority of another $170 million from the state to prevent wildfires, the officials said Monday.
As peak wildfire season approaches, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100, which allocates the accelerated funding to conservancies for forest and vegetation management and fire prevention efforts.
“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” Newsom said in a statement. “We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires.”
The funding includes:
- $30.9 million — Sierra Nevada Conservancy;
- $23.5 million — California Tahoe Conservancy;
- $31.4 million — Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy;
- $30.9 million — State Coastal Conservancy;
- $30.9 million — San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy;
- $23.5 million — San Diego River Conservancy; and
- $10 million for the Cal Fire training infrastructure to equip a fire resiliency center for the Karuk Tribe in the northwestern corner of the state.
Newsom also signed an executive order that aims to ensure wildfire prevention projects that receive AB 100 funding are able to benefit from streamlining under a previous emergency proclamation issued last month. That order aimed “to cut bureaucratic red tape” by suspending Environmental Quality Act and the Coastal Act requirements that were “slowing down critical forest management projects,” according to the governor’s office.
Officials pointed to an increasing emphasis on forest management and prescribed burns.
The state is spending $2.5 billion to ramp up and implement the Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. The plan’s focus includes increasing the pace of fuel reduction, prescribed fire and forest health. According to Newsom’s office, all of the 99 key actions outlined in the plan are underway or completed, in addition to $200 million invested annually through June 2029 for healthy forest and fire prevention efforts.
Controlled burns aim “to build community and forest resilience” that expands the use of prescribed fire and cultural burning. Prescribed fire activity has nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023, Newsom’s office reported.
Newly available dashboards help the public track the state’s wildfire safety work. Officials also noted executive orders dating back to when Newsom took office in 2019 that have exempted wildfire and forest management projects from environmental regulation.
