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State touts wildfire prevention investments, urges federal funding and National Guard reassignments
Summary
At a CAL FIRE lookout near Colfax, state officials described multi‑year fuel‑reduction work, opened a $135 million grant round and called for increased federal support and National Guard reassignments to help protect communities and infrastructure from wildfire.
At a CAL FIRE lookout above Colfax, state and CAL FIRE officials on Tuesday described a multi‑year fuels‑reduction program, announced open applications for a $135 million wildfire prevention grant program and urged the federal government to restore funding and personnel to forest and emergency agencies.
The comments came as Brian Estes, unit and fire chief for CAL FIRE’s Nevada‑Yuba‑Placer unit, and Annalee Burlou, chief deputy director of operations for CAL FIRE, highlighted recent and ongoing work around Colfax, Applegate and Weimar and along Interstate 80 to reduce wildfire risk to communities and critical infrastructure.
“Fuel reduction is not just land management. It is proactive firefighting,” Burlou said, describing calendar‑year work that Cal Fire counts as fuel reduction and prescribed fire and noting the department had exceeded strategic prevention goals by May. Burlou also said the state is accepting applications for wildfire prevention grants that “provide $135,000,000 for projects that include risk … that reduce risk and build resilience and save lives.”
Patrick Wright, director of the governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, said the task force’s dashboard now shows more than 2,200 projects and that state and federal partners are treating “more than 700,000 acres annually together with our federal partners.” He said the task force will prepare an update of its joint action plan by the end of the year and proposed a statewide network of fuel breaks.
The governor (Office of the Governor) framed the remarks as both celebration of state investments and a plea for federal action. The governor said state investments since 2020 total “over $2,500,000,000” for prevention and resilience and listed recent state purchases and staffing commitments — including additional helicopters and planned Cal Fire staffing increases — as evidence of the state’s effort.
“We need an equivalent commitment of resources, not rhetoric, to support these partnerships,” the governor said, urging Congress and the White House to restore or increase funding to the U.S. Forest Service, NOAA and FEMA. He also called for National Guard teams to be reassigned from duties he described as theatrical back to wildfire preparedness, saying the reassignment would return personnel “doing something as important as preparing for wildfire season.”
Officials described several program and reporting tools intended to show progress: a Cal Fire fuel‑treatment effectiveness report available on Cal Fire’s website and an interactive task‑force project map and dashboard that the task force director said lists thousands of projects by agency and location.
Numbers and program details provided in the remarks include: state investment of roughly $2.5 billion in prevention and resilience since 2020; a declared record of about 730,000 acres treated in 2023; more than 2,200 projects tracked on the task force dashboard; more than 50,000 acres of prescribed fire and defensible‑space inspections cited by CAL FIRE leadership; and more than 3,200 wildfires in California so far in 2025, according to CAL FIRE remarks. Officials also repeated that “95% of wildfires are caused by human activity.” Where remarks were imprecise, officials’ language in the transcript is reflected here (for example, staffing targets were described as planned increases and timing as “over the next five years”).
No formal vote or local ordinance was taken at the event. The statements were presentations and policy appeals: CAL FIRE and task force staff described current and planned programs, and the governor used the platform to press for federal funding and personnel changes.
The state said it is accepting grant applications for the wildfire prevention grant program and encouraged local, tribal, federal and nongovernmental partners to apply; officials did not provide a grant application deadline during the remarks. The task force director said a joint action‑plan update will be prepared by the end of the year and indicated that the update will call for coordinated fuel breaks connecting multiple landowners and jurisdictions.
The event closed with the governor and state officials reiterating requests for federal funding and personnel support and with a pledge to produce follow‑up materials and an updated action plan before year’s end.
