Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan Tuesday to confront California’s growing wildfire threat, pledging more money to improve forest health and emergency response. And it starts with an unexpected plea to President Trump for collaboration.
The initiative comes on day two of Newsom’s tenure in the governor’s mansion. While the details are still being fleshed out, his move signals a commitment to addressing the deadly fires that have battered the state in recent years and are likely to only worsen with climate change.
“It’s clear to me a lot more has to be done,” Newsom said during a visit to the Sierra foothills town of Colfax (Placer County), where he toured an area prone to fire before staging a news conference in front of a fire truck. “We are stepping up our game. I hear you, I get it. We need to do more. These last two years have been devastating.”
Most of the plans announced Tuesday expand existing state programs, with $305 million of new funding proposed in the upcoming state budget. The measures range from thinning trees and igniting prescribed burns in forests to adding new fire helicopters and upgrading emergency alert systems, which have fallen short in some blazes over the past few years.
But several of the proposals have the hallmarks of Newsom’s brand of progressive politics. They include mapping fire hazards for the poor, increasing mental health services for first responders, and embracing the latest high-tech tools on the fire lines, such as wildland cameras that keep a lookout for flames.
The new governor also appears to be petitioning the president for a truce in California’s rocky relationship with the White House, at least on fire policy. While state leaders and the Trump administration agree on the need to act on the fire threat, the president has downplayed the role of global warming and urged an increase in logging. On the other hand, the state has championed greater climate action and the more surgical removal of wildland fuels.
Newsom sent a letter Tuesday to Trump, co-signed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, both Democrats, asking for “increased cooperation” with the federal government and more dollars for forest management.
At the news conference, the governor chided Trump for cutting the budget of the U.S. Forest Service but was quick to praise him for sending aid after recent wildfires. Newsom even defended Trump for his widely mocked comments about the need to rake forests to reduce the fire threat.
“I think what he was talking about was defensible spaces,” Newsom said, referring to the strategy of creating fuel breaks in overgrown areas.”
Newsom also said Tuesday he would back efforts to modernize California’s 911 system with a new statewide fee. A similar push last year, which called for surcharges on cell phone and land-line bills, failed to muster the two-thirds support it would need to pass in the Legislature.
The governor said he hopes to win approval for the fees by 2020. In the meantime, he plans to steer some money from the state budget to update older equipment that now makes up much of the system.
Newsom’s $305 million of proposed fire spending in the upcoming budget calls for $214 million for reducing forest fuels, $64 million for more firefighting personnel and equipment, and $25 million to help local governments handle emergencies.
The governor also signed two executive orders Tuesday. The first directs agencies to consider the fire risks of low-income, elderly and “socially isolated” state residents. The second changes the way state agencies contract with private companies, with the goal of boosting collaboration on mapping risks and incorporating technology.
In addition, the governor announced this week that he’s appointing acting Cal Fire director Thom Porter to become permanent director of the agency, and that Jared Blumenfeld, a former regional administrator at the federal Environmental Protection Agency, will be secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Last year was one of California’s fiercest and most costly wildfire years. More than 1.6 million acres burned as the state recorded both its largest blaze in modern history, the Mendocino Complex Fire, and its most destructive, the Camp Fire in Butte County, which claimed 86 lives and nearly 14,000 homes. Fire experts blame the rising toll on a number of factors, including poor forest management, mass development of the state’s wildlands and a hotter, drier climate.
