California will direct $70 million in new spending towards wildfire prevention and community resilience, Governor Gavin Newsom's office said on Thursday, in a package built around brush clearance, evacuation-route maintenance and the construction of fire breaks in dozens of high-risk towns. The announcement was timed to coincide with the start of what CAL FIRE expects to be an abnormally early fire season.
The package draws on cap-and-trade revenue and on a portion of last year's climate bond, and will be administered through CAL FIRE's Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force. Roughly $40 million is earmarked for "shaded fuel breaks" along ridge lines that connect populated valleys, with the balance directed at home-hardening grants for residents in the wildland-urban interface.
CAL FIRE Director Joe Tyler said the state was "preparing for a fire year that could begin weeks ahead of schedule". An exceptionally warm March collapsed snowpack across most of the Sierra, with Tahoe City Cross melting out forty days earlier than the long-term average, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has flagged a high-confidence signal for above-normal heat across the western United States from May through July.
Communities to receive priority funding include Paradise in Butte County, where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people, and several towns in the Santa Cruz mountains that survived the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex with significant defensive infrastructure damage. Plumas, Shasta and Lake counties together account for roughly a third of the new spending.
Insurers, who have been pulling back from the state's home market, gave a cautious welcome. The California Department of Insurance said the announcement would be factored into its review of catastrophe-modelling regulations later this year, and that it expected at least two of the eight largest carriers operating in the state to expand new-business writings if the funding flowed promptly.
The state's drought monitor showed roughly forty per cent of California in moderate-to-severe drought as of May 6, with the figure rising sharply in the south. Public water districts in Los Angeles and San Diego counties have not yet imposed mandatory restrictions, but several said voluntary appeals would begin in June.