Wildfire Raging against California Necessitates More Funding on Restoration and Preparedness Vice President Harris Says

By Chujun Tang

 

SAN BERNARDINO, CA — Vice President Kamala Harris declared during her visit to San Bernardino on Friday that billions of dollars in federal funds would be dedicated to the mitigation of wildfires raging along the western coastline.

 

“It is about recognizing that we cannot, as a government or as a society or people who care, only respond in reaction to a moment of harm or danger,” said Harris, “We must also be able to use technology and common sense and the expertise of those on the ground to understand we have the tools to predict these wildfires ahead of time.”

Before her appearance, Harris took an aerial tour of the San Bernardino National Forest; the site of the El Dorado Fire in the fall of 2020, which burned nearly 23,000 acres and claimed the life of a firefighter. That fire season was the worst in California history in terms of acres burned. However, such disastrous wildfires have become more and more common, according to Tony Scardina, deputy regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region.

Within hours of Harris’ announcement, her warnings were being substantiated. On Friday night, a fire started by a private burn and exacerbated by strong offshore winds swept over Big Sur’s Colorado Valley. The National Weather Service’s Bay Area Branch, in a tweet, described the fire as “stubborn” and “surreal.” It burned 700 acres, prompted evacuations of residents in the nearby town, and caused a portion of the oceanside Highway 1 to close.

Intensified by climate change, continuous droughts in coastal areas have created conditions ripe for burning. “More drought creates a longer fire season or even a continuous fire season through the year,” said Craig Clements, professor of meteorology at San Jose State University and director of the school’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center.

Facing severe damages in the past two years and potential dangers caused by extended drought, Harris announced that the Biden administration is committing 1.3 billion dollars to disaster relief funding, including 600 million dollars for California. That money will help support federal firefighter salaries, fund grants to create defensible space around communities, pay for burned area rehabilitation efforts, and reduce hazardous fuels.

 

The vice president also unveiled a 10-year plan to quadruple fuel reduction, to create a more resilient landscape and cut down on vegetation that could feed a sweeping wildfire and. The total cost is estimated to be roughly 50 billion dollars, 20 billion for national forest lands and 30 billion for non-national forest lands.

As the government invested enormously in post-fire rehabilitation, some scholars  express their concerns with pre-fire activities. “We are not, by any stretch, out of the hole when it comes to the drought situation. And so I think it’s prudent for water agencies to still be planning based on what they have at hand, and not by what or may not fall out of the sky over the next several months,” said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy program at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. 

He noted that most of the federal funds Harris announced for California would go into forest restoration and post-fire cleanup, as opposed to the preventive work like water conservation and meteorological monitoring.

“This money is more likely to be devoted to post-fire activities as opposed to what I think of as pre-fire activities, the things that we need to urgently do as a state and also the federal government needs to do … to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire,” said Wara.

 

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  • Jordan

    Jordan Varney received a masters from UC Davis in Psychology and a B.S. in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd. Varney is editor in chief of the Vanguard at UC Davis.

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9 comments

  1. Rather than spending more on “restoration and preparedness”, we actually need to do less (in a sense).  Here’s an example of the latter:

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta today secured a decision by the Lake County Superior Court vacating Lake County’s approval of the proposed Guenoc Valley Mixed Use Planned Development (Guenoc Valley) Project. In today’s decision, Lake County Superior Court found that approval of the Guenoc Valley Project was based on an inadequate environmental review that failed to consider the Project’s impact on the surrounding community’s emergency evacuation routes in the event of wildfire in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.

    The Guenoc Valley Project is a luxury resort and residential development project located on the 16,000-acre Guenoc Valley Ranch property in southeast Lake County, along the border of Napa County. As proposed, the Project would include up to 850 hotel rooms and resort apartments, 1,400 residences, and various resort amenities, along with an off-site workforce housing development and water well infrastructure. As the court noted, the Project is estimated to bring approximately 4,000 residents to the area, a significant population increase given the surrounding area’s existing population of approximately 10,000. The Guenoc Valley Project site is largely designated as a very high fire hazard severity zone, and was burned by wildfires in 1952, 1953, 1963, 1976, 1980, 1996, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2020.

    https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-secures-court-decision-vacating-approval-lake-county

    It’s rather frightening that Lake county tried to approve this in the first place. Unfortunately, this type of thing is not unusual.

    I wonder how soon Paradise and parts of Santa Rosa will burn again, after they’re fully-rebuilt. “Paradise Strong”, as they say. Or, perhaps Tejon Ranch, after it’s built.

  2. The vice president also unveiled a 10-year plan to quadruple fuel reduction, to create a more resilient landscape and cut down on vegetation that could feed a sweeping wildfire.

    Isn’t that essentially what former President Trump was saying?  That California was not managing its forests properly?  Not defending Trump as such, but criticizing the automatic backlash to his comments due to politics, when his comments were essentially correct.

    1. Isn’t that essentially what former President Trump was saying?  That California was not managing its forests properly?  

      He was not correct.

      In the first place, much of “forest” lands belong to the federal government, not the state government.

      In addition, no one is going to be “raking up” the forests.

      Trump also claimed (during a visit to Sacramento) that the climate will also be “cooling down”, soon (something like that).  The guy who asked the original question did not seem to know what to say, after that.  (But, I guess you’ve got to admire Trump’s “hutzpah”, in a way.  Sort of like how he “won the election”.)

      But Biden/Harris are wrong as well, in that they’re proposing to (further) “subsidize” development in high-risk areas:

      The total cost is estimated to be roughly 50 billion dollars, 20 billion for national forest lands and 30 billion for non-national forest lands.

      1. And once you start “raking up the forests”, that’s a never-ending job.

        At least, until the point that nothing much grows there, if the climate change changes enough.

        In reference to a recent Davisite article, we can’t even seem to ban leaf blowers, so far. (And, I’m a fan of leaf blowers – electric ones, at least.)

        A lot of southern Nevada and Arizona don’t seem to have much problem, since there’s so little vegetation in the first place. Maybe they should put “Paradise”, there?

        Of course, they don’t have much water for farming or urban use, either.

  3. According to this article the federal govt and California share in management of all the California forests:

    Specifically identified in the report is an extremely important requirement often ignored by those trying to assign or deny responsibility for California’s forest management problems on the basis of who owns these lands. This requirement stipulates that regardless of ownership of the numerous forest properties the following key provisions apply:
    “While forest management responsibilities typically align with ownership, natural processes—such as forest fires, water runoff, and wildlife habitats—do not observe those jurisdictional boundaries. As such, federal and state agencies have developed certain arrangements to collaborate on management activities across California’s forests. For example, federal law has a provision—known as the “Good Neighbor Authority”—that allows states to fund and implement forest health projects on federally owned land. As discussed later, the federal government also funds a number of grant programs to encourage collaborative projects on both federal and nonfederal forestlands. Additionally, federal and state agencies have established agreements for collaborative fire suppression efforts across jurisdictions when fires do occur.”
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/14/californias-government-solely-responsible-for-states-forest-management-and-wildfire-debacle/

    1. Just noting that the article you posted references more than 40 “stakeholders” (government, and non-government entities).

      But, it appears that the government (one way, or another) is the entity that would pay to reduce hazards (on an ongoing/permanent basis).

      And it still won’t save “Paradise” next time. But not to worry, much of the resulting costs will also be borne by the government, one way or another.

      Meanwhile, they’ve already approved Tejon Ranch, I understand. (Just one example.) “Tejon Strong”, coming up!

    2. I missed this part:

      State and local governments own about a 3 percent (1 million acres) combined.

      In total these non-federal entities represent about 43% of the states forest areas.

      I am not “hopeful” that the current, corrupt approach will end (given that both Republicans and Democrats support it). The only way this ever stops is multiple fires (and multiple government bailouts), to the point that it threatens to bankrupt the government.

      The same will be true regarding areas increasingly prone to flooding/sea-level rising. And some of those areas are pretty wealthy, meaning that it’s even less-likely that the corruption will end.

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