State firefighters have responded to nearly 2,300 wildfires so far in 2022, burning nearly 11,000 acres, state and federal officials said Wednesday.
This year’s fire season is “well underway,” said Fire Chief Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire’s deputy director of community wildfire preparedness and mitigation, during a virtual discussion Wednesday.
Berlant noted that the state has seen fire weather mostly year-round in recent years due to rising seasonal temperatures and the West Coast’s ongoing drought. As a result, 18 of the 20 most destructive fires in state history have occurred in the last 22 years.
“We’ve been preparing all winter long on fire prevention activities like fuel breaks and prescribed burns,” he said. “We are ready, but we really need the public to do the same.”
Berlant was one of a handful of speakers participating in the discussion of the state’s wildfire prevention and preparedness efforts, which also included U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, California Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 Administrator Martha Guzman and California Air Resources Board Deputy Executive Officer Chanell Fletcher.
According to Berlant and Ghilarducci, the state is allocating hundreds of millions of dollars toward fire prevention projects and support for local governments in parts of the state that are most at risk of wildfires.
On Wednesday, Cal Fire announced it would direct some $118 million toward 144 local wildfire prevention projects. Cal Fire also funded 105 similar projects in September 2021.
“That’s been a critical component for us to really be successful,” Berlant said. “In order to build the capacity that’s needed to do this work, we have to rely on our local partners to get work done in their communities.”
Padilla said federal legislators are also taking steps to prepare for future wildfires.
His FEMA Improvement, Reform and Efficiency (FIRE) Act would update the legislation governing the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency to include wildfires alongside disasters the agency has always focused on like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.
The bill would also allow FEMA to pre-deploy resources in areas that are under red flag warnings.
“When it’s hot, when it’s dry, when it’s windy, we know that the potential for a devastating fire is way up,” Padilla said. “And we want to be ready … I’m determined to continue to use all the tools in our belt to prevent wildfires.”
According to Padilla, the U.S. Senate is currently considering the bill, which the chamber’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved in February.
Every year it’s the same old thing $$$$$.It seams like more money is going to put out fires.You trained to be a fire fighter because you wanted the job thank you for your service.Now put out the fires and don’t blame global warming.
And in other news, the days are getting longer and after late June will get shorter.
AD
We allow the most irresponciable citizens, the homeless, to have access to fires. Our homeless population is allowed even on no burn days, to have fires for cooking or to keep warm.
So far, the average “wildfire” is less than 5 acres. I guess the Democrats have done such a fine job over the years that there isn’t much left to burn. BTW- When I show folks here picture of the ash falling on my car, leaving California makes sense to them too.
Aka Pyromania Season.
BTW, weather modification is just conspiracy theory also, Right?
Just ANOTHER, . . . newsom summer TALK IS CHEAP
A LEADER delegates then holds those persons in charge responsible !
Failure to show consistent positive results means their unemployment !
Political cartoonists’ view on CA fires
https://tinyurl.com/ctn3te7d
https://tinyurl.com/2p99kuws
https://tinyurl.com/mvkjwdnj
https://tinyurl.com/yckfanbh
October 27, 2019
‘‘I Own This’: Gov. Newsom On California’s Wildfire Emergency,
PG&E Power Shutoffs And More ‘
“Gavin Newsom’s first full day in office, Jan. 8, 2019…”
” “Everybody has had enough,” the governor said, announcing he’d signed a sweeping executive order overhauling the state’s approach to wildfire prevention. Climate change was sparking fires more frequent, ferocious and far-reaching than ever before, Newsom said, and confronting them would have to become a year-round effort.
The state’s response, Newsom added, “fundamentally has to change.”
But two-and-a-half years later, as California approaches what could be the worst wildfire season on record, it does so with little evidence of the year-round attention Newsom promised.”
LAist https://tinyurl.com/jwfxakcv
2020
‘Damage from California’s wildfires estimated at $10 billion, experts say’
abc7 https://tinyurl.com/2p88wc46
“California’s 2020 wildfire season thwarted the state’s fight against climate change, spewing enough carbon dioxide into the air to equal the emissions of millions of passenger vehicles driving over the course of a year.
Those roughly 9,600 fires burned nearly 4.2 million acres, killed 31 people, and emitted an estimated 112 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to a California Air Resources Board report released Dec. 31. The number is akin to the greenhouse gas emissions of 24.2 million passenger cars driving in a single year”
bloomberg https://tinyurl.com/46hyarr4
2021
‘Newsom Misled The Public About Wildfire Prevention Efforts Ahead Of Worst Fire Season On Record’
“An investigation from CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom found the governor has misrepresented his accomplishments and even disinvested in wildfire prevention. The investigation found Newsom overstated, by an astounding 690%, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the very forestry projects he said needed to be prioritized to protect the state’s most vulnerable communities. Newsom has claimed that 35 “priority projects” carried out as a result of his executive order resulted in fire prevention work on 90,000 acres. But the state’s own data show the actual number of acres worked on for those “priority projects” is 11,399.
Overall, California’s response has faltered under Newsom. After an initial jump during his first year in office, data obtained by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom show Cal Fire’s fuel reduction output dropped by half in 2020, to levels below Gov. Jerry Brown’s final year in office. At the same time, Newsom slashed roughly $150 million from Cal Fire’s wildfire prevention budget.” …
“Overall, the data show Cal Fire treated 64,000 acres in 2019,
but only 32,000 acres in 2020 and 24,000 acres through Memorial Day this year.”
LAist https://tinyurl.com/jwfxakcv
Is estimated there are, going into 2021 fire season 147 million dead trees just in Sierra Nevada mountains.
Beginning of April 2021 roughly 90,000 hazardous trees still needed to be removed just from area of 2018 CAMP / Paradise Fire.
2021
‘Grinning Gavin Newsom Stands In Wildfire Site: “The Debate Is Over Around Climate Change” ‘
https://tinyurl.com/2p88a6dk
2022
‘Newsom hailed this ‘critical’ wildfire-prevention program. Two years on, it hasn’t completed a single project’
https://tinyurl.com/3jecmvf2
October 27, 2019
‘‘‘I Own This’: Gov. Newsom On California’s Wildfire Emergency, PG&E Power Shutoffs And More ‘
cap radio https://tinyurl.com/b9ya56m5
TALK IS CHEAP
Repeated failure by a governor and a political party,
should NOT be rewarded at the ballot box !
Come on Mayor what I wrote wasn’t that bad.
I don’t know maybe it might be a good idea to actually prosecute arsonists instead of releasing them 10 minutes later. I know that would rob Gavin newsome of getting on his soapbox crying about climate change. Instead of giving money away to illegal aliens maybe some of that money could be spent on cleaning up our forests it’s sad that the corrupt government of the State of California is allowed to get away with breaking federal laws constantly now they want to give money for reparations when do the law abiding American citizens get to benefit because it’s sure not going to happen under a Democratic leadership. The Joe Biden was not elected president he was installed and now look what has happened things are not going to get better under the Democratic leadership they are going to get much much worse I pray for our nation