Restoring Health and Reducing Wildfire Threat to California's Forests
Jan 8, 2021 at 8:00am
Comprehensive Strategy Aligns with $1 Billion Investment Proposed in Governor’s Budget
SACRAMENTO – Following the most destructive wildfire season in California’s recorded history, the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force today issued a comprehensive action plan to reduce wildfire risk for vulnerable communities, improve the health of forests and wildlands and accelerate action to combat climate change.
The Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan sets a broadly supported strategy to increase the pace and scale of forest and wildland management to meet the state’s target of completing projects on 500,000 acres annually by 2025 and expanding the use of prescribed fire, particularly on state-owned lands. The plan calls for achieving these goals largely through regional strategies tailored to the environmental conditions, risks and priorities in each area.
The plan also centers on building a large network of fuel breaks around vulnerable communities, expanding home hardening, defensible space and preparedness planning to create wildfire-adapted communities, and sustaining the economic vitality of rural forested areas.
Actions outlined in the plan align with a $1 billion investment included in Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2021-2022 budget. This proposed funding would advance key priorities, including $323 million in early actions to protect communities, reduce risk of large, catastrophic wildfires and jumpstart economic recovery in rural communities.
Wildfires burned over 4 million acres across California in 2020, more than the 2017 and 2018 fire seasons combined. Hotter, drier conditions in the state’s forests driven by climate change and the consequences of a century-old legacy of fire suppression have disrupted natural wildfire behavior and generated unparalleled risk of catastrophic wildfire across landscapes from coastal redwoods to chaparral and oak woodlands.