California governor overstated readiness by 690% ahead of unprecedented fire season, investigation finds

The state is facing what could be its worst fire season ever

California governor Gavin Newsom vastly overpromised on how ready the state was for this summer’s upcoming fire season, a new investigation from CapRadio and NPR has found, overstating the number of acres prepared under one program by 690 per cent. It’s grim news for a state already gripped by drought, about to face what could be its worst fire season ever, and only a year after 2020 broke previous records.

When he took office, Mr Newsom, said on his first day that “everybody has had enough” and promised dramatic investments in programs to mitigate wildfires, such as clearing out built-up brush, digging fire breaks, and allowing for controlled burns, all of which reduce the ability of fires to burn available vegetation “fuel” and spread.

According to the investigation, the governor said that his efforts to tackle 35 different “priority projects” to protect communities vulnerable to fire had covered 90,000 acres, when state data revealed the total was just shy of 12,000 acres. It also found that the pace of wild fire prep has dropped over time, falling from 64,000 total acres prepared in 2019, to 32,000 in 2020.

The governor, who is already under fire facing a nearly unprecedented recall vote, also slashed $150 million from the budget of Cal Fire, the state’s fire management agency.

Thom Porter, chief of Cal Fire, told CapRadio his agency takes the blame, saying it hadn’t “done our job in educating the public, nor the governor’s office”. He also promised to speed up fuel reduction in the future.

“It’s not something that I’m comfortable with,” he added. “It is something that I’m working to reconcile and to correct for the future.”

Michael Wara, the director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University’s Wood Institute for the Environment, told CapRadio that the state needed to be treating a million acres a year.

This year, Mr Newsom has proposed a $1.2bn “wildfire resiliency” fund to be added to the state’s upcoming budget.

Mr Wara said the move could help mitigate much of the danger facing the state over time, but that California is currently in a “deep hole” in terms of preparedness and will need to engage in “many years of sustained effort to get out”.

The news follows an apocalyptic 2020 fire season in California, where a record-breaking 4.3 acres burned, doubling the previous record from 2018.

On top of that, most of the state is gripped with “extreme” to “exceptional” levels of drought, as the climate crisis and a record heat wave pound California. That has major utilities providers like PG&E warning that the state’s upcoming wildfire season could be its wort, and could start weeks earlier than normal.

Mr Newsom hopes to spend nearly $2 billion in the coming years on fire prevention, including buying new helicopters, improving forest management and hiring roughly 1,400 new seasonal firefighters.

Even if the state was meeting its own stated targets, scientists say it is still behind where it needs to be to head off more horrible wildfires.

“We need to be doing a million acres a year, for a long time,” Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment, told the radio stationm, adding, “We are in a deep hole, and it is going to take us many years of sustained effort to get out.”