California announces 300 wildfire projects fast-tracked in 300 days

What you need to know: One year after Governor Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency to fast-track critical forest management projects, more than 300 wildfire safety projects have been approved statewide in 300 days to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires that threatens communities across the state. Thanks to the Governor's decisive action, wildfire safety projects are being approved in as little as 30 days, saving years or more of review.

SACRAMENTO - Following Governor Newsom's emergency proclamation on wildfire-prone forests last March, state agencies have coordinated to cut red tape and fast-track critical wildfire safety projects across the state, all while maintaining vital environmental safeguards. Over 300 projects across nearly 57,000 acres have been approved in the state in just 300 days. Through this streamlined process, projects are now being approved in as little as 30 days, saving a year or more of review and red tape for more complicated projects.

A year after fast-tracking forest management work to address emergency conditions, we are seeing results and moving faster than ever to protect California from catastrophic wildfires. When we cut through red tape and streamline the permitting process, we are proving that we can prioritize wildfire safety and our commitment to environmental values across the state.

Governor Gavin Newsom

Following a Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force's Sierra Nevada Regional meeting on March 19, the Task Force shared an update on California's progress to streamline permitting for wildfire projects, which has enabled a diversity of agencies, tribes, and organizations to move faster than ever before to deliver real results.

"Across California, Task Force partners are proving that when we remove barriers and work together, wildfire resilience can happen faster and at the scale our communities and landscapes need," said Task Force Director Patrick Wright. "From the Sierra Nevada and beyond, agencies, tribes, local leaders, and innovators are showing how collaboration, workforce development, and new funding approaches can turn momentum into real progress on-the-ground to protect communities and restore landscapes."

Wildfire safety projects streamlined across the state

Over 300 projects across nearly 57,000 acres, as illustrated on the Task Force's Project Streamlining webpage, have been approved all over the state. State and federal agencies, tribes, resource conservation districts, fire safe councils, private landowners and more have benefited from this streamlined permitting process. Fast-tracked projects are protecting vulnerable communities, improving defensible space, creating evacuation routes, and restoring ecosystems.

Here are some notable projects seeing a major impact on the ground:

• 600+ acre fuels reduction collaborative project protecting communities in the Los Angeles area near the Palisades footprint led by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority

• 450-acre Prosper Ridge Community Wildfire Resilience Project that is incorporating cultural burning and prescribed fire for community protection in Humboldt County

• Nearly 3,000-acre Scott Valley/Callahan Fuels Reduction Project to restore ecosystem health and protect vulnerable rural communities in Siskiyou County

With the Governor's extension of the emergency proclamation, project streamlining applications are being accepted through May 1, 2026.

California's comprehensive wildfire strategy

Governor Newsom is committed to tackling the wildfire crisis from every angle - prevention, response, and recovery. Since 2021, the state has invested billions of dollars in wildfire prevention and forest resilience, expanding cutting-edge technologies that help firefighters respond faster and more safely, and forged unprecedented partnerships with federal, tribal, and local governments, as well as private and non-profit landowners.

Streamlined approval of forest management projects has allowed the State to address emergency conditions expeditiously. By using a transparent, time-limited framework with clear environmental sideboards, the Newsom Administration is:

• Reducing near-term wildfire danger in high-risk communities.
• Protecting lives, homes, and critical infrastructure.
• Improving forest health and watershed resilience in the face of a hotter, drier climate.
• Creating a bridge to a durable, long-term regulatory framework for forest health and fuels reduction that will outlast any single emergency order.

California's unprecedented wildfire readiness

As part of the state's ongoing investment in wildfire resilience and emergency response, CAL FIRE has significantly expanded its workforce over the past five years by adding an average of 1,800 full-time and 600 seasonal positions annually - nearly double that of the previous administration. Over the next four years and beyond, CAL FIRE will be hiring thousands of additional firefighters, natural resource professionals, and support personnel to meet the state's growing demands.

Governor Newsom has invested millions of dollars to protect communities from wildfire - with $135 million available for new and ongoing prevention projects and $72 million going out the door to projects across the state. This is part of over $5 billion the Newsom administration, in collaboration with the legislature, has invested in wildfire and forest resilience since 2019.

This builds on consecutive years of intensive and focused work by California to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires. New, bold moves to streamline state-level regulatory processes builds long-term efforts already underway in California to increase wildfire response and forest management in the face of a hotter, drier climate.

The state's efforts are in stark contrast to the Trump administration's dangerous cuts to the U.S. Forest Service, which also threatens the safety of communities across the state. The U.S. Forest Service has lost 10% of all positions and 25% of positions outside of direct wildfire response - both of which are likely to impact wildfire response this year. In recent weeks, the Trump administration proposed a massive reorganization that would shutter the Pacific Regional Forest Service office and other regional Forest Service offices across the West, compounding staff cuts and voluntary resignations across the agency.

As the conditions that fueled 2020 become more common, CAL FIRE urges residents to prepare: make an evacuation plan, pack a go bag, and sign up for local emergency alerts.

To learn more about preparedness, visit ReadyforWildfire.org.

Scaling up response capacity: More firefighters, equipment, and advanced technology

California has dramatically expanded its firefighting capacity and deployed cutting-edge technology, adding new equipment to Los Angeles, thousands of firefighters, and billions in funding, the world's largest aerial firefighting fleet, and first-of-their-kind mapping and monitoring systems.

• New strike team strengthens Los Angeles response: Cal OES assigned five new Type-6 fire engines to the Los Angeles City Fire Department, forming a strike team that can respond quickly in both urban and wildland areas. Type-6 engines are the smallest, most maneuverable units in the state fleet-typically four-wheel drive, carrying 300 gallons of water, and designed to reach steep, narrow, or remote locations. The engines are state-owned and prepositioned with the Los Angeles Fire Department through California's Fire and Rescue Mutual Aid System. This means they can respond immediately to local incidents and deploy to other regions when mutual aid is requested. Cal OES manages a fleet of more than 270 state-owned fire engines assigned to over 60 local agencies statewide, ensuring every community can access coordinated emergency resources when disasters strike. Since 2019, Governor Newsom and the Legislature have invested in expanding and replacing these mutual aid engines to sustain all-hazards readiness across California.

• Doubled fire protection capacity: The Governor has nearly doubled CAL FIRE's fire protection budget from $2 to $3.8 billion since 2019, increasing fire protection staff from 5,829 to 10,741 positions, while committing to 2,400 more positions over the next several years. California continues to shatter training records, graduating over 650 CAL FIRE officers in 2025 alone - ensuring boots on the ground and resources in place to meet the growing threat of wildfires. The Governor increased the budget of the Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) from $1.8 billion to $3.1 billion and staffing from 1,139 to 1,879 positions since 2019.

• Expanding to the world's largest aerial firefighting fleet: Just eight months after the addition of the state's second C-130 Hercules airtanker, the state just bolstered its fleet with a third C-130H - strengthening California's ability to protect communities from catastrophic wildfire and adding to the largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world. These large-capacity, highly specialized aircraft deliver significant volumes of fire retardant in a single mission, enhancing CAL FIRE's ability to protect communities and natural resources. These new C-130Hs will be strategically located at CAL FIRE bases throughout the state to mobilize when needed, adding to the helicopters, other aircraft, and firefighters ready to protect Californians. This follows California's leadership in utilizing innovation and technology to fight fires smarter, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), satellites, and more for wildfire detection, projection, and suppression.

• California unveils first-ever statewide LiDAR maps: The California Natural Resources Agency, in partnership with California Air Resources Board, NASA Ames Research Center, and the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, released California's first statewide LiDAR datasets on forest and vegetation conditions. The state has processed more than 100 million acres of LiDAR data to map terrain and vegetation and help identify where wildfire fuels have accumulated across California, including 40 million acres collected using $30 million invested by the State Legislature. For the first time, California now has a single, wall-to-wall, high-resolution view of forest and vegetation conditions statewide, providing consistent and reliable data to inform wildfire prevention, forest health, and climate resilience efforts. Agencies, tribes, researchers, land managers, and community members can immediately access the data and integrate it into planning, modeling, and on-the-ground decision-making.

• World's first redwood forest observatory: California installed the first redwood forest observatory-two research towers in Jackson Demonstration State Forest that measure the inflow and outflow of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy between redwoods and their environment. The flux towers provide a real-time understanding of how redwoods respond to changing environmental conditions, wildfire, and management. Within the next year, aggregated measurements will be processed for public use.

Climate Bond funding is making a difference in reducing wildfire risk

Governor Newsom and the California Legislature deployed $170 million in voter-approved Proposition 4 (Climate Bond) funding for wildfire resilience projects.

Over $48 million has already been awarded through State Conservancies, $38 million of those funds directly reducing wildfire risk in Southern California.

This includes over $20 million from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for 16 projects that protect communities near the Palisades Fire and over $10 million from the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy for four projects in communities impacted by the Eaton Fire. Hundreds of millions more in Climate Bond funding will continue to be distributed to high-priority wildfire projects over the next several years.