California is only now heading into the teeth of the wildfire season but already has seen nearly three times as much acreage burn than during all of 2023. The wildfires have threatened tens of thousands of homes and other structures across Southern California since they accelerated during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend.

No deaths have been reported, but at least a dozen people, mainly firefighters, were been treated for injuries, mostly heat-related, authorities said.

In the small community of Wrightwood, about 90 minutes outside Los Angeles, authorities implored residents to flee the exploding Bridge Fire, which has burned more than a dozen homes in the area.

Resident Erin Arias said she was racing up the mountain when she got the order to leave and did, grabbing her passport and dog. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused water on the roof of their still-standing home. Their cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely scary,” Arias said, looking at the burned embers of her neighbor’s home. “We’re really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire moved extraordinarily fast across complex terrain, likely giving residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even seasoned fire officials.

The Bridge Fire “had to go up mountain sides, burn down slope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then make it down slope again at least two other times in effectively one burning period,” he said.

The full extent of the damage caused by the fires remained unclear. The three blazes are:

— The Airport Fire in Orange County, which has burned more than 35 square miles (91 square kilometers). The fire was 5% contained Wednesday night and was reportedly sparked by heavy equipment operating in the area. Orange County Fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said eight firefighters have been treated for injuries, mostly heat-related. One resident suffered smoke inhalation and another burns, he said. Several homes burned in El Cariso Village.

— The Line Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest, which was 18% contained Wednesday and had charred 57 square miles (148 square kilometers). The blaze has injured three firefighters. Authorities said it was caused by arson in Highland. A suspect was arrested Tuesday.

— The Bridge Fire east of Los Angeles, which grew tenfold in a day and has burned 78 square miles (202 square kilometers), torched at least 33 homes and six cabins and forced the evacuation of 10,000 people. The cause of the fire is not yet known. It remained zero percent contained Wednesday night.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent National Guard troops in to help with evacuations, and the White House said President Joe Biden was monitoring the situation.

In El Cariso Village, a community of 250 people along Highway 74 in Riverside County, an Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 homes and several cars engulfed in flames.

Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander Kevin Fetterman said the blaze has been difficult to tame because of the terrain and dry conditions and because some areas hadn’t burned in decades.

More than 5,500 homes in Riverside County were under evacuation orders, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and structures in the Cleveland National Forest have been damaged.

In San Bernardino County, some 65,600 homes and buildings were under threat by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern edge of Big Bear Lake were told to leave Tuesday.

The Line Fire blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke, which provided shade for firefighters trying to get ahead of winds expected later Wednesday, said Fabian Herrera, a spokesperson for those battling the Line Fire.

A man from the town of Norco suspected of starting the Line Fire on Sept. 5 was arrested and charged with arson, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. Officials did not specify what was used to start the fire.

Investigators collected evidence from the man’s vehicle and home that suggests he could have been involved in starting other fires, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday.

On the Nevada border with California near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen structures and charred nearly 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) of timber and brush along the Sierra Nevada’s eastern front.

Rich Meyr and Evelyn Kelley were the first arrivals at an evacuation center set up Wednesday at a recreation center in south Reno. Both said they refused to evacuate previous fires but decided to play it safe this time.

“My son’s wedding is Saturday. I threw all the flowers and gowns in the RV and we left. It looks like a garden shop inside that RV,” Kelley said. “But who wants to burn alive?”

More than 600 firefighters kept the blaze from growing Wednesday despite high winds that grounded all aircraft that had dropped retardant on the flames over the past two days. The fire was about 30% contained Wednesday night.

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RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The Board of Supervisors is expected to authorize Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department Chief Bill Weiser to close access to multiple outdoor recreational locations for the duration of the Southern California Wildfire Season to minimize public safety risks.

The closure was slated to begin Tuesday through the fire season.

Cal Fire regularly closes designated grounds in the central and southwest portions of the county — typically from June to November.

The 2024 closures would take effect on June 1, according to preliminary statements by Cal Fire officials.

“Due to the potential for large damaging human-caused fires, the county fire chief has determined these areas should be closed, except on public roadways and on inhabited areas of private property within the closure areas,” the statement said. “The potential for large damaging fires … this year may be enhanced by the extreme vegetation growth experienced throughout Riverside County.”

Since the rainy season, wildflower overgrowth and blooms have covered previously open trails, especially in the western half of the county.

According to Cal Fire, wildfires in any of the proposed closure locations would be “difficult to manage, given their terrain and remoteness, “officials said.

The following sites would fall under the county’s closure order:

• Bautista Canyon, southeast of Hemet;
• Eagle Canyon, between Lake Mathews and the county landfill, just north of Cajalco Road;
• Indian Canyon and North Mountain, around San Jacinto;
• the Ramona Bowl, south of Hemet;
• Steel Peek, northwest of Meadowbrook, due west of Good Hope and south of Gavilan Hills; and
• Whitewater Canyon, near Cabazon.

The Ramona Bowl would remain accessible between sunrise and noon daily, with the area off limits any other time of day, according to officials.

Still, by reducing foot and off-road vehicle traffic in each location, the chances of a wildfire starting are much slimmer, according to the fire department.

Hikers will be able to see easily marked closure signs at trail entry points to warn potential violators of fines and other penalties.

First offenses usually result in a minimum $100 ticket.

Residents who live in the area of a closure would be permitted to come and go as they please.

The closures are usually lifted at year’s end but can be rescinded before then by the chief, depending on the timing of winter rains.

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INDIAN FALLS, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest wildfire merged with a smaller blaze and destroyed homes in rugged and remote areas, as numerous other fires burned across the U.S. West.

The Dixie Fire had already leveled over a dozen houses and other structures in Northern California when it combined with the Fly Fire and tore through the tiny community of Indian Falls after dark Saturday.

An updated damage estimate was not available Sunday, though fire officials said the blaze had charred more than 301 square miles (779 square kilometers) of timber and brush in Plumas and Butte counties. It was 21% contained.

The fire prompted evacuation orders in several small mountain communities and along the west shore of Lake Almanor, a popular resort area. More than 10,000 homes were under threat, officials said.

Firefighters also reported progress against the nation’s largest wildfire, the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, containing 53% of the blaze that had scorched 640 square miles (1,657 square kilometers) of land.

The lightning-caused fire has burned 67 homes, mainly cabins, and at least 2,000 houses were under evacuation orders.

Firefighters have been dealing with perilous fire behavior, with flames consuming huge areas of vegetation each day. Such conditions are often from a combination of unusual random, short-term and natural weather patterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change. Global warming has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years.

In southwest Montana, officials were focusing on structure protection for three fires amid weather forecasts of rising temperatures, low humidity and westerly winds this week, factors that could produce explosive growth.

Crews were trying to protect about 200 homes and cabins and prevent the 44-square-mile (144-square-kilometer) Trail Creek blaze from reaching the Big Hole National Battlefield in Beaverhead County, fire spokesman Jason Nedlo said. The battlefield site, operated by the National Park Service, has been closed because of the fire threat.

Five federal firefighters were in stable condition Sunday after being burned when swirling winds blew a lightning-caused wildfire back on them in eastern Montana on Thursday. The five were building a defensive line at the Devil’s Creek Fire in Garfield County when the weather shifted suddenly.

Elsewhere in California, the 105-square-mile (272-square-kilometer) Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, California, has destroyed at least 23 buildings, including more than a dozen in Nevada. It was 45% contained.

In north-central Washington, firefighters battled two blazes in Okanogan County that threatened hundreds of homes and again caused hazardous air quality conditions Saturday. And in northern Idaho, east of Spokane, Washington, a small fire near the Silverwood Theme Park prompted evacuations Friday evening at the park and in the surrounding area. The theme park was back open Saturday with the fire half contained.

More than 85 large wildfires were burning around the country, most of them in Western states. They had burned over 1.4 million acres (2,135 square miles, or more than 553,000 hectares).

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Smoke and ash from massive wildfires in the American West clouded the sky and led to air quality alerts Wednesday on parts of the East Coast as the effects of the blazes were felt 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away.

Strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states all the way to other side of the continent. Haze hung over New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The nation’s largest wildfire, Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, grew to 616 square miles (1,595 square kilometers) — just over half the size of Rhode Island. Fires also burned on both sides of California’s Sierra Nevada and in Washington state and other areas of the West.

The smoke blowing to the East Coast was reminiscent of last fall, when large blazes burning in Oregon’s worst wildfire season in recent memory choked the local sky with pea-soup smoke but also affected air quality several thousand miles away. So far this year, Seattle and Portland have largely been spared the foul air.

People in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere with heart disease, asthma and other health issues were told to avoid the outdoors. Air quality alerts for parts of the region were in place through Thursday.

“One of the things about this event that makes it so remarkable is that the smoke is affecting such a large swath of the U.S,” said Jesse Berman, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an expert on air quality. “You’re not just seeing localized and perhaps upstate New York being affected, but rather you’re seeing numerous states all along the East Coast that are being impacted.”

David Lawrence, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said wildfire smoke usually thins out by the time it reaches the East Coast, but this summer it’s “still pretty thick.”

In California, a wildfire burning completely uncontained south of Lake Tahoe crossed the state line into Nevada. New voluntary evacuation orders were issued for portions of Douglas County, Nevada.

The Tamarack Fire, started by lightning in Alpine County, California, has now burned more than 65 square miles (168 square kilometers). Authorities say more than 1,200 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has destroyed at least 10 structures.

Meanwhile, Oregon on Wednesday banned all campfires on state-managed lands and in state campgrounds east of Interstate 5, the major highway that is commonly considered the dividing line between the wet western part of the state and the dry eastern half.

The regulation includes the designated fire rings at campsites, as well as candles and tiki torches. Propane grills are still allowed, but the state still urged campers to pack food that doesn’t require heating or cooking.

The Oregon fire has ravaged the sparsely populated southern part of the state and has been expanding by up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox.

Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes and, in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky and are visible for more than 100 air miles (161 kilometers).

Authorities in Oregon said lower winds and temperatures Tuesday allowed crews to improve fire lines, and they hoped to make more progress Wednesday. The fire was approaching an old burn area on its active southeastern flank, raising hopes it would not spread as much.

The blaze, which is being fought by more than 2,200 people, is about one-third contained. It was within a few hundred acres of becoming Oregon’s third-largest wildfire in modern history.

At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and an additional 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have burned, but no one is known to have died.

Extremely dry conditions and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

While Berman is hopeful that the smoke will last only a couple of days, he said we may see more of it due to climate change.

“We fully expect that you’re going to see more situations where smoke, from fires occurring farther away, is going to travel long distances and affect people in other parts of the country,” Berman said. “I would not be surprised at all if these events did become more frequent in the future.”

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — More people living along the eastern edge of an Oregon wildfire were told to evacuate late Thursday as the inferno once more began spreading rapidly and erratically in hot afternoon winds and a nearby, smaller fire gained a foothold.

The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., has now torched an area larger than New York City and has stymied firefighters with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior. Some of the evacuations were triggered by a second, smaller fire called the Log Fire to the northeast of the main blaze that expanded to 500 acres (202 hectares) in the past 24 hours.

The main fire has destroyed 21 homes in an area north of the Oregon-California border that’s been gripped by extreme drought. It was 7% contained as of Thursday, when authorities decided to expand previous evacuation orders near Summer Lake and Paisley. Both towns are located in Lake County, a remote area of lakes and wildlife refuges with a total population of about 8,000.

“We’re trying to determine where is it moving, how far and how fast, to determine what to do with evacuation levels,” said Gert Zoutendijk, spokesman for the Oregon office of the State Fire Marshal. “The big word is for everyone in Lake County to be aware and start getting signed up for the alert system if they have not already.”

On Wednesday, the Bootleg Fire generated enormous smoke columns that could be seen for miles — a sign that the blaze is so intense it is creating its own weather, with erratic winds and the potential for fire-generated lightning.

Meanwhile, a fire near the northern California town of Paradise, which burned in a horrific 2018 wildfire, caused jitters among homeowners who were just starting to return to normal after surviving the deadliest blaze in U.S. history.

Chuck Dee and his wife, Janie, returned last year to Paradise on the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada to rebuild a home lost in that fire. So when they woke up Thursday and saw smoke from the new Dixie Fire, it was frightening, even though it was burning away from populated areas.

“It made my wife and I both nervous,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The Dixie Fire was tiny when it began on Tuesday, but by Thursday morning it had burned 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers) of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County northeast of Paradise. It also moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.

There was zero containment and officials kept in place a warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and east Concow to be ready to leave.

The Dixie Fire is part of a siege of conflagrations across the West. There were 71 active large fires and complexes of multiple fires that have burned nearly 1,553 square miles (4,022 square kilometers) in the U.S., mostly in Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have swept the region, making wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

In the Pacific Northwest, firefighters say they are facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall than early July.

A wildfire threatening more than 1,500 homes near Wenatchee, Washington, grew to 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) by Thursday morning and was about 10% contained, the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said.

About 200 firefighters were battling the Red Apple Fire near the north-central Washington city renowned for its apples. The fire was also threatening apple orchards and an electrical substation, but no structures have been lost, officials said.

In Paradise, California, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Sacramento, residents are focused on rebuilding. So far, 1,642 building permits have been issued with 923 homes completed, according to the city’s website. The skyrocketing cost of lumber has complicated some projects, but Dee said he was fortunate to get his bid in place before the prices rose.

The Dees’ rebuilt house is a little smaller than the original one, and with a different floor plan — and this one was constructed with fire retardant siding. A local law also prohibits wooden fences from touching the houses.

The couple hope to move in once they get their utilities hooked up. In the meantime, they’re living in an RV. They said they don’t regret moving back, having accepted that fires will be part of life in this part of California.

“We can’t wait to get back in this house and get started,” Chuck Dee said.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Republican candidate for governor Kevin Faulconer says he’d declare a state of emergency over California wildfires on his first day in office as he works to put the state on “war footing” to prevent worsening blazes.

Faulconer released his one-page wildfire plan Tuesday amid days of scorching temperatures and fires across the U.S. West.

“What I really want to do is put us on a war footing when it comes to preventing wildfires, and that’s what this plan is all about,” Faulconer said in a Monday interview with The Associated Press.

The former mayor of San Diego is running in the Sept. 14 recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Faulconer has steadily rolled out policy proposals and tried to craft himself as the serious-minded Republican with the governing track record California needs.

His Republican rivals include state Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner and businessman John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018. On Monday, conservative talk radio host Larry Elder entered the race.

As drought grips California and the rest of the West, wildfires are top of mind. Newsom made fire prevention a key focus of his first year in office, spending his first full day on the job calling for a greater focus on clearing brush and dead trees in high-risk areas.

But he’s recently faced criticism for his approach after a Capital Public Radio investigation found his administration cleared just a fraction of the acres he had touted. This year’s state budget sets aside $1.5 billion over two years to address fires.

Faulconer’s brief plan is light on details but highlights four areas of focus: spending $1 billion annually on wildfire prevention, declaring a state of emergency to streamline environmental rules around clearing dead vegetation, creating a new state department, and providing tax credits for homeowners who make their properties more fire resistant.

The $1 billion would be “an ongoing secure source of funding year after year that demonstrates how important this truly is because this is about saving the lives,” he said.

Newsom declared a state of emergency in 2019 that eliminated some environmental rules and other regulations for 35 fuel-clearing projects. Beyond those projects, the state is combining various regulatory permits for fuel reduction projects, Newsom’s office said.

Faulconer said his state of emergency would make it easier to complete all projects by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as well as local projects.

State law already requires people who live in certain high-risk areas to create at least 100 feet (30 meters) of “defensible space” around their homes to protect against flying embers and encroaching blazes. Homeowners who refuse to do so can be fined, though the law is enforced unevenly.

Faulconer said he would encourage people to clear their property by offering a tax credit of up to $10,000.

Faulconer also wants to create the California Department of Wildfire Prevention, which would take fire prevention duties away from Cal Fire and other agencies and put them all in one place. He said he wants to keep Cal Fire focused on fighting blazes, while the new state department would work on preventing them.

His plan didn’t touch on regulating utilities, whose equipment has sparked some of the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfires, or climate change, which experts say is making fires more intense.

Faulconer said climate change “plays a role” but that the state needs to immediately focus on clearing more fuel and brush.

California voters will be asked two questions in the recall: Should Newsom be removed from office, and who should replace him? Votes on the second question will only be counted if more than 50% of people say yes on the first.

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WEED, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that has put thousands of people under evacuation orders in Northern California grew substantially but firefighters had some success against the flames, authorities said Wednesday.

The fire covered more than 27 square miles (70 square kilometers) but crews “made good progress on the western edge of the fire, cutting off progression into the communities,” Shasta-Trinity National Forest said in a statement.

Containment was estimated at 19%.

All evacuation orders issued by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Offic remained in effect for the communities of Lake Shastina and Juniper Valley north of the city of Weed, about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of San Francisco.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who traveled to the area on Tuesday and received a briefing from fire officials, announced that the state secured a federal grant that will help local, state and tribal agencies receive reimbursement for certain fire suppression costs.

Newsom and other governors from the drought- and heat-plagued West were to meet with President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Burning in the shadow of the towering Mount Shasta volcano, the Lava Fire was ignited by lightning last week.

Another wildfire to the northeast has grown to more than 9 square miles (23 square kilometers).

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As bad as last year’s record-shattering fire season was, the western U.S. starts this year’s in even worse shape.

The soil in the West is record dry for this time of year. In much of the region, plants that fuel fires are also the driest scientists have seen. The vegetation is primed to ignite, especially in the Southwest where dead juniper trees are full of flammable needles.

“It’s like having gasoline out there,” said Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona.

A climate change-fueled megadrought of more than 20 years is making conditions that lead to fire even more dangerous, scientists said. Rainfall in the Rockies and farther west was the second lowest on record in April, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It means that the dice are loaded toward a lot of forest fire this year,” said Park Williams, a UCLA climate and fire scientist, who calculated that soil in the western half of the nation is the driest it has been since 1895. “This summer we’re going into fire season with drier fuels than we were at this time last year.”

In addition, the western drought is deepening week by week.

In late March, less than one-third of California was suffering extreme or exceptional drought. Now more than 73% is, according to the National Drought Monitor, which is based on precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and streamflow measurements. A year ago, heading into the record-smashing 2020 fire year when more than 4% of California burned, just 3% of the state was in extreme or exceptional drought.

But the outlook is worse elsewhere.

“I think the Southwest is really primed for a bad fire season,” University of Utah fire scientist Phil Dennison said. That’s because last year’s normal monsoon season, which brings much of the year’s rainfall, never showed up.

A year ago, none of Arizona, Nevada and Utah was in extreme or exceptional drought, but now more than 90% of Utah, 86% of Arizona and 75% of Nevada is in those highest drought categories, according to the drought monitor. New Mexico jumped from 4% extreme or exceptional drought a year ago to more than 77% now.

UCLA meteorologist Daniel Swain, who also works for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and The Nature Conservancy, said key factors going into fire season are soil and plant wetness.

“So is soil moisture very low? Is vegetation extremely dry? Absolutely, yes. Unequivocally, yes. Pretty much everywhere in California and the Southwest,” Swain said. “So that box is checked big time in a way that is going to massively increase the potential background flammability … given a spark, given extreme weather conditions.”

This doesn’t necessarily ensure the 2021 fire season will be worse than 2020. Last year more than 15,800 square miles (40,960 square kilometers) of the United States burned, an area about the size of Maryland and Delaware combined. Several scientists said last year’s fires were stoked not just by hot, dry conditions, but by unusual situations that made a bad year horrific:

Two intense heat waves — one that nearly set a record for hottest temperature on Earth in Death Valley — set the stage, and a freak California lightning barrage provided lots of spark.

The lightning outbreak was the type that has happened only a few times in history and is unlikely to occur two years in a row, Swain said.

“Maybe it won’t be the hottest summer,” he said, adding. “I’m really grasping at straws here. All we have going for us is dumb luck.”

When the scientists see extremely dry or dying trees, they get even more worried.

In Arizona, junipers are succumbing to the 20-year drought and its two-year intensification, said Joel McMillin, a forest health zone leader for the U.S. Forest Service there. Officials haven’t done a precise count but anecdotally the die-off is 5% to 30% with some patches up to 60%.

Until the dead needles drop to the ground, which takes a year or so, the fire hazard increases, fire manager Steinhardt said. “So you have something that’s highly flammable and it’s … 20-, 30-, 40-foot tall and every single one of those needles on there now becomes an ember that can be launched.”

“This is probably one of the driest and potentially most challenging situations I’ve been in,” said the veteran of 32 fire seasons.

In California, normally drought-tolerant blue oaks are dying around the San Francisco Bay Area, said Scott Stephens, a fire science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “They don’t have access to water. Soil moisture is so low. When you start to see blue oak dying, that gets your attention.”

Human-caused climate change and decades of fire suppression that increases fuel loads are aggravating fire conditions across the West, scientists said.

Global warming has contributed to the megadrought and is making plants more prone to burning.

Normally a good part of the sun’s energy removes water from plants and soil, but when they are already dry, that energy instead makes the air hotter, which creates a feedback loop, Swain said.

And drier conditions lead to beetle infestations that further weaken and kill trees, said University of Utah’s Dennison.

For decades, U.S. firefighting agencies have tried to put out fires as quickly as possible, and that’s usually worked, UCLA’s Williams said. But the practice resulted in the buildup of dense trees, brush and other potential fire fuels.

“Fire is escaping our control increasingly frequently,” he said. “And some of the reason for that might be because of increasing density of fuels. But we also see that these fires are escaping our control during record-breaking heat waves — and it’s the warmest, driest years when we have the hardest time controlling fires.”

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Ahead of peak fire season, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a $536 million wildfire package enabling the state to take urgent action on projects that support wildfire suppression, improve forest health and build resilience in communities to help protect residents and property from catastrophic wildfires in diverse landscapes across the state on April 13th. The Governor signed SB 85 alongside legislative leaders at a fuels management project in the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area that helped protect a Butte County community from last year’s North Complex Fire.

The legislative package builds on Governor Newsom’s early action funding for wildfire resilience proposed in his 2021-2022 state budget. It funds projects to restore the ecological health of forests and watersheds, fuel breaks around vulnerable communities, statewide fire prevention grants targeting projects to advance community hardening, and improvements to defensible space to mitigate wildfire damage. This early action plan is part of the Governor’s overall proposed $1 billion investment in forest health and community fire resilience.

“California is taking bold, early action to protect our high-risk communities from the upcoming wildfire season before it starts,” said Governor Newsom. “This crucial funding will go towards efforts including fuel breaks, forest health projects and home hardening. I thank the members of the Legislature for their partnership as we do more than ever before to build wildfire and forest resilience across the state.”

The Administration is spearheading sustainable approaches to thinning California’s vulnerable landscapes, half of which will be funded under the early action legislation. One of these approaches is to develop a comprehensive framework to expand the wood products market in California to create economic opportunities for the use of forest materials that store carbon, reduce emissions and contribute to sustainable local economies. Furthermore, the state’s iBank will partner with the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and other agencies to advance forest- and agricultural-related applications to the Climate Catalyst Fund. The fund will provide loans, loan guarantees and other credit support to encourage the development of businesses that utilize wood and forest biomass; encourage private-sector innovations in technology, business models, infrastructure and supply chains in woody biomass markets; and promote optimization of state grant funds in the sector.

The Oroville East site is a joint project by CAL FIRE, the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Parks and Recreation to thin vegetation around the park, which helped slow the North Complex Fire and prevent it from spreading into the community of Kelly Ridge.

“As the Senate passed the wildfire prevention and resiliency package yesterday, members spoke about the many fires that have torn through their districts. From the coast to inland, north to south, Paradise to San Diego, each of us have watched our communities burn, evacuate, and work to rebuild far too many times,” said Senate President pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego). “Together, we are just 40 people, but each of us represent the millions of Californians who said goodbye to homes, loved ones, and livelihoods. This bill will help protect those who have lost so much to wildfires and prevent fresh pain from being inflicted across the state. This is an investment in Californians, and it will not be the last. I appreciate the dedication my colleagues, particularly Senators Bob Wieckowski, Susan Rubio, and Mike McGuire, have shown to this critical issue.”

“This wildfire prevention package is a big deal, but it’s not enough. We are not out of the woods on this issue, and we need to act like the woods are in flames. I’m grateful that the Administration and the senate see it the same way,” said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood). “Thank you to my colleagues, in particular Assemblymembers Richard Bloom, Phil Ting, Luz Rivas, Laura Friedman, Jim Wood, and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry for their hard work on this important issue.”

Governor Newsom last week announced that he is expanding and refocusing the Forest Management Task Force to deliver on key commitments in the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan issued in January, including the $1 billion in investments. The Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force of federal, local and tribal leaders builds on the state’s collaborative effort to improve the health of forests and reduce wildfire risk to communities.

In March, Governor Newsom authorized $80.74 million in emergency funds for 1,399 additional firefighters with CAL FIRE to bolster fuels management and wildfire response efforts.

More information on the progress to date by the Newsom Administration and the Legislature to address California’s forest health and wildfire crisis can be found here.

For full text of the bill signed, visit: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

Gov.ca.gov • Contributed

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OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California is in such an urgent race with another devastating wildfire season that officials began soliciting local project ideas even before they had money to pay for them. It faces such a threat of drought that the governor said Tuesday that he has executive orders drafted and ready to sign as needed.

In normal years, the worst of the fires don’t start until late summer or fall, leaving a window through about May to thin forests, clear buffer zones designed to slow the spread of fires near communities, and beef up the state’s seasonal fire crews.

Not this year, officials said.

A dry winter is already blending into a tinder-dry summer that has produced twice as many wildfires as this time last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

That led legislative leaders to speed up what Newsom had proposed as a $1 billion infusion in fire mitigation projects during the fiscal year that starts in July. Newsom signed into law Tuesday a $536 million early action package, roughly $200 million more than he had sought to spend in the first half of this calendar year.

He signed it while awkwardly seated on the step of a firetruck for lack of a better prearranged location, and near a long boat ramp at one of the state’s major reservoirs that this year leads to nothing but grass and rocks where there should be abundant water.

Fire conditions have worsened so much in recent years that once rare fire tornadoes have become more common as megafires create their own weather. Last year’s record-setting wildfire season scorched more than 4% of the state while killing 33 people and destroying nearly 10,500 buildings.

“These are extremes the likes of which these men and women in uniform have never experienced,” Newsom said in Butte County, near where a massive fire burned last year, and not far from where another wind-driven fire nearly leveled the Sierra foothills town of Paradise more than two years ago.

Beth Bowersox, a dispatcher with the state’s firefighting agency, related Tuesday how she named the 2018 Camp Fire after a nearby landmark at the onset of what became California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire, killing 85 people.

“I took hundreds of 911 calls, some of them from friends and neighbors, some of whom passed (died),” she recalled in an emotional account describing the “innumerable losses.”

She herself had to evacuate her Paradise home, while her firefighter brother and one of his crew were injured by an exploding propane tank.

Amid such evolving conditions, lawmakers said they are now intent on starting to fight the causes of extreme wildfires, in addition to spending billions of dollars to fight fires once they ignite.

The new spending package will distribute about 86% of the money in the form of grants, so the state solicited project proposals from local governments and other organizations even before the budget appropriation, said Jessica Morse, deputy secretary for forest resources management with the California Natural Resources Agency.

It streamlined normal contracting requirements with the goal of getting grants out within weeks instead the usual months, she told Senate budget committee members Monday. And state firefighting agencies are hiring now while starting on projects designed to protect communities.

“This is incredibly urgent,” and the usually slow bureaucracy is working “to ensure that they are delivering at an incredibly fast pace,” she said. Most will go to what she called shovel-ready projects that can begin nearly as soon as funding is available.

The money is nearly seven times more than what had been in this year’s budget for wildfire mitigation, said Democratic Assemblyman Richard Bloom, who helped negotiate the package.

It is going to organizations and agencies “that are as we speak planning how to roll out these efforts in advance and as fire season is beginning,” he said Monday before attending Tuesday’s signing ceremony. “That’s never happened before, and it is extremely important given what we know about wildfire in this state.”

The state spent about $9 billion fighting last year’s record fires, Bloom said, but putting more money into prevention is intended to cut the number of blazes and their devastation.

That includes nearly $200 million to build fuel breaks near vulnerable communities and $283 million to manage forest. Another $25 million is intended to draw $75 million in federal matching money to help make homes less likely to burn.

Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher objected that $12 million in the funding package negotiated by Democratic leaders is going to a coastal land conservancy. Another $125 million is to fulfill a legislative requirement that went unmet last year.

“Far too many communities have been devastated because we’re not getting on top of the fuel reduction,” said Gallagher, who represents fire-prone rural areas, including Paradise.

He voted for the funding but said much more money should go to managing forests.

“The rest of it is lot of smoke and mirrors,” Gallagher quipped. “And let’s face it, we don’t need any more smoke in California.”

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