In the months leading up to the devastating wildfires that ravaged the Los Angeles area, California’s wildfire prevention programmes faced a significant financial setback.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration approved a budget that cut over $100 million from wildfire and forest resilience initiatives for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The budget, enacted in June, removed $101 million from seven key wildfire mitigation programmes, according to a Newsweek report. The cuts coincided with unprecedented fires that have destroyed more than 10,000 structures and remain uncontrolled.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) saw a $5 million reduction in funding for fuel reduction crews, which included support for vegetation management efforts involving the California National Guard.
Additional program reductions included:
- $28 million from state conservancy projects aimed at expanding wildfire resilience
- $12 million from a “home hardening” initiative designed to safeguard homes from fires
- $8 million from research and monitoring efforts, largely overseen by Cal Fire and universities
- $4 million from the forest legacy program, which incentivizes sustainable land management for private landowners
- $3 million from the development of an inter-agency forest data hub
In response to criticism, Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s communications director, dismissed claims of negligence as “ridiculous.”
“The governor has doubled the size of California’s firefighting forces, built the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet, and increased forest management efforts tenfold since taking office,” Gardon asserted, highlighting the broader long-term investments rather than the recent budget decisions.
Its like they knew in advance eh. Nothing is by chance. The Empire plots and plans well in advance, just as it has the right puppets in place to carry out their plans well in advance. The Empire is very structured, organized, devious and evil.
They also cancelled many peoples fire protection on their home insurance about 4 months before when many have been insured for decades. Prior knowledge?
And the reservoir that was empty: They started to empty it in February 2024 and then in April 2024 started negotiating a contract with another company to fix the reservoir cover. The contract was agreed in November 2024, and I think for about $130K US. Why not fix it themselves “in house”? Why wait until April to start a contract when they knew it needed fixing in February? Why did the contract take 5 months to agree and, let’s be honest, for a very small sum of money when we are talking infrastructure? $130K is probably much less than all the people involved in the contract negotiations would earn in 5 months.
With the “governance” of California, I think they use the environmental stuff as an excuse to hide behind – “we must dump mountain run-off to the sea because otherwise it will affect a fish”, “we must take 10 years for a study to see if putting power cables underground affects a type of ant”. (Power cables above ground do contribute to fires).