Senate advances 15‑bill wildfire package to speed rebuilding, expand protections and add firefighters

The California Senate on Tuesday advanced a 15‑bill wildfire response package the chamber’s leader called the “Golden State Commitment,” approving measures aimed at accelerating rebuilding after major fires, extending tax and insurance protections for disaster survivors, improving consumer protections and expanding firefighting and mitigation capacity.

The package won broad bipartisan support during a long floor session that included roll‑call votes on each measure. Proponents framed the set of bills as an emergency response to the January wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles County, including provisions to: extend the deadline for filing property tax “misfortune and calamity” claims and expand certain property‑tax exemptions; prevent cancellations and nonrenewals of commercial and residential policies for one year after an emergency declaration; create expedited pathways for rebuilding health and social‑service facilities; strengthen penalties for looting and impersonating first responders; provide grants and tax relief to help speed residential reconstruction; and create a pilot and planning programs for undergrounding utilities and improving outage and mitigation planning.

The package also includes operational changes aimed at wildfire preparedness and recovery: a requirement that state and local agencies improve coordination on evacuation plans for skilled nursing and care facilities, new reporting and planning steps to better understand outage impacts, and statutory authority for expanded protections for tenants, mobile‑home residents and small businesses affected by disasters.

Most prominently, the Senate approved SB 581, the Fight for Fire Fighters Act, which transitions about 3,000 seasonal CAL FIRE firefighters and related resources into full‑time, year‑round staffing, and directs the department to operate engines, helicopter bases and vegetation‑management crews 365 days a year. Senate leaders said the change is intended to boost frontline response capacity and increase capacity for community mitigation work. The bill passed with wide support on a roll call.

Lawmakers also approved a range of consumer‑facing measures included in the package. SB 547 expanded the existing moratorium on nonrenewals and cancellations after a declared disaster to cover commercial insurance policies (affecting storefronts, nonprofits and small businesses), lawmakers said, to prevent disruption of services needed for community recovery. SB 541 and other bills targeted price gouging and predatory contracting in disaster cleanup and rebuild work, authorized temporary licensure flexibility for affected licensed professionals, and established criminal penalties for looting and impersonating emergency personnel.

Senators said the package contains both immediate response steps and longer‑term changes to reduce the state’s exposure to catastrophic wildfire risk. The bills include measures requiring better coordination of deenergization (PSPS) reporting, expanded accounting for outages and impacts, and options to accelerate undergrounding of high‑risk…