wildfires – Enviro Updates

State forestry board new rules for California’s new ‘Zone Zero’ fire-safety proposal

April 23, 2026

Noah Haggerty, LOS ANGELES TIMES

After years of heated debates among fire officials, scientists and local advocates, California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection released new proposed landscaping rules for fire-prone areas Friday that outline what residents can and can’t do within the first 5 feet of their homes.

Many of these proposed rules — designed to reduce the risk of a home burning down amid a wildfire — have wide support (or at least acceptance); however, the most contentious by far has been whether the state would allow healthy plants in the zone.

Many fire officials and safety advocates have essentially argued anything that can burn, will burn and have supported removing virtually anything capable of combustion from this zone within 5 feet of houses, dubbed “Zone Zero.” They point to the string of devastating urban wildfires in recent years as reason to move quickly.

Forests, Land UseCalifornia Board of Forestry, fire safety vegetation rules, Safety Zone, wildfires, Zone Zero

North Bay communities lose tens of millions in federal funding for wildfire preparation work

May 21, 2025

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

As peak wildfire season arrives, Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties are scrambling to address the loss of key FEMA grants for fire prevention work already underway.

The Brooktrails community sits in a rugged area of unincorporated Mendocino County a few miles west of Willits. Home to over 3,000 people, the neighborhood is packed in amid thick brush, forest and windy roads. Many of the homes are surrounded by abandoned overgrown lots, there’s one main route in and out and water is limited.

“It has been labeled one of the most fire dangerous communities in the state for a really good reason,” said Scott Cratty, executive director of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council. “It’s got all the elements if fire gets in there to be very bad.”

In August, Mendocino County was awarded a $3.6 million grant through the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, the first phase of a $50-million project which would have gone to reducing fuels across roughly 1,500 acres of land and creating defensible space and retrofits for hundreds of homes in and around the Brooktrails area.

Sonoma and Napa counties also received multi-million-dollar BRIC grants for similar work to make homes less likely to catch and spread fire in a region increasingly prone to devastating blazes.

ForestsBRIC grants, defensible space, fire resilience, wildfires, wildland urban interface

Californians pay billions for power companies’ wildfire prevention efforts. Are they cost-effective?

December 3, 2024

Alejandro Lazo, CALMATTERS

After utility equipment sparked tragic wildfires, PG&E, SCE and SDG&E received state approval to collect $27 billion from ratepayers. As California electric bills soar, questions have emerged about oversight and costs.

Diane Moss lost her home in the Santa Monica Mountains after power lines ignited the apocalyptic Woolsey Fire in 2018. Since then, she’s pressed for a safer electric grid in California.

“It’s so easy to forget the risk that we live in — until it happens to you,” said Moss, a longtime clean energy advocate. “All of us in California have to think about how we better prepare to survive disaster, which is only going to be more of a problem as the climate changes.”

In recent years, California’s power companies have been doing just that: insulating power lines and burying lines underground, trimming trees, deploying drones and using risk-detection technology.

As wildfires across the U.S. intensify, California is on the leading edge of efforts to prevent more deadly and destructive fires ignited by downed power lines and malfunctioning equipment.

Customers have shouldered a hefty price for wildfire safety measures. From 2019 through 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission authorized the three largest utilities to collect $27 billion in wildfire prevention and insurance costs from ratepayers, according to a report to the Legislature.

And the costs are projected to keep rising: The three companies — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — continue to seek billions more from customers for wildfire prevention spending. Rates are expected to continue outpacing inflation through 2027.

Red more at https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/12/pge-utilities-wildfire-prevention-customer-bills-california/

Climate Change & Energy, Forestselectricity rates, PG&E, wildfire hazard, wildfires

After tree trimming declared ineffective, PG&E adopts new wildfire mitigation strategy

August 4, 2023

Grace Scullion, SACRAMENTO BEE

PG&E Corp. is axing its enhanced tree-trimming program aimed at reducing wildfire risk after deeming it largely ineffective, the Wall Street Journal reported.

PG&E Corp. is axing its enhanced tree-trimming program aimed at reducing wildfire risk after deeming it largely ineffective, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The $2.5 billion program thinned and cleared more than one million trees near power lines across Central and Northern California since it went into effect in 2019, the newspaper said after interviews with executives.

Pacific Gas & Electric, which provides electricity and gas to 16 million across the state, credited the program with reducing total fire ignitions by 7% and ignitions during the fall fire season by 13%.

The embattled utility, which has been blamed for several of California’s worst and deadly wildfires, said it would still trim its backlog of about 385,000 potentially hazardous trees that have yet to be cleared — an effort expected to take nine years.

The Oakland-based company also said it would continue its regular tree-trimming maintenance. Twice per year, the company inspects trees around power lines for hazards. It is also piloting a targeted tree-trim program focused on heavily forested areas of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Climate Change & Energy, ForestsPG&E, transmission lines, vegetation management, wildfires

California vineyard laborers wanted wildfire safety. Then came a shadowy counter-movement

June 11, 2022

Alleen Brown, THE GUARDIAN

As harvest season becomes riskier, workers are pressing for safer conditions including disaster insurance and hazard pay

But in recent months, a slick website has appeared under the name Sonoma Wine Industry for Safe Employees, or Sonoma Wise, featuring counterpoints to demands from North Bay Jobs with Justice.

When Margarita García, a 39-year-old mother from Oaxaca, Mexico, picks wine grapes during a wildfire, the sky is red and thick with smoke. Ash falls on her face, irritating her throat and eyes. The hot, fast work makes N-95 masks too suffocating, so she and her colleagues opt for bandanas.

In this part of northern California, the grape harvesting season has been transformed by fire. Sonoma county is known internationally for its pinot noir and – increasingly – for intense wildfire seasons made worse by the climate crisis. That has created new economic threats for both grape growers, who can lose an entire season’s harvest in a matter of hours, and for workers, who must operate in increasingly dangerous conditions without replacement income if work is called off.

Now, vineyard laborers like García are pressing officials to enact stronger worker protections during wildfire seasons. They want hazard pay, disaster insurance and safety trainings translated in Indigenous languages – García’s first language is Mixteco. They are also pushing for community safety observers to be allowed to monitor working conditions in evacuation zones and for clean water and bathrooms, even when the ash is falling.

It’s an example of a type of climate-driven labor organizing that is growing across the US, as workers face new climate hazards, such as exposure to extreme heat and hurricane disaster zones littered with dangerous materials.

In turn, a surprising counter-movement has arisen – one that has the veneer of being worker-led, but is driven by the wine industry itself.

Labor organizers say it’s a familiar tactic – one that’s long been used by powerful industries to curtail movements for worker’s rights.

Agriculture/Food System, Climate Change & Energyair quality, extreme temperatures, fire danger, health & safety, wildfires

Utilities need to do more to improve power grid, reduce wildfires, state audit finds

May 15, 2022

Kimberley Morales, THE MERCURY NEWS

A 91-page report by the state auditor says California utility regulators need to do more to ensure utility companies reduce the risk of wildfires.

According to the March audit, utilities led to two of the largest wildfires in the state from 1932-2021 including the Dixie Fire, caused by a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. line, which burned 963,000 acres and sits as California’s second-largest wildfire, and the Thomas Fire, which the report said was caused by Southern California Edison and burned 282,000 acres. The audit later adds that the cost of fighting fires has nearly doubled when comparing the 2016-2017 season to the 2020-2021 season from $1.9 billion to an estimated $3.5 billion.

The audit included that the state Office of Energy and Infrastructure Safety has failed to hold its standard for granting safety certifications to utilities such as PG&E despite serious deficiencies in mitigation plans.

“The office approved plans despite some utilities’ failure to demonstrate that they are appropriately prioritizing their mitigation activities, and subsequent reviews have found that some utilities failed to focus their efforts in high fire-threat areas,” wrote Michael Tilden, acting California state auditor in the public letter to the California Legislature.

Climate Change & Energy, Forestselectricity grid, fire danger, grid safety, PG&E, wildfires

Citing inadequate wildfire plans, Lake County judge deals setback to Guenoc Valley resort development

January 6, 2022

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A judge has issued a blow to the developers of a proposed sprawling luxury resort and housing project in southeastern Lake County, ruling that the environmental impact report for the 25-square-mile development inadequately addresses wildfire impacts and evacuation safety.

The Jan. 4 ruling by Superior Court Judge J. David Markham is also a setback for elected officials who hoped the Guenoc Valley project would be an economic development boon for the struggling county, one of California’s poorest.

“If the ultimate result of this decision is the project not moving forward, that will be a tremendous loss,” south Lake County Supervisor Moke Simon said Thursday.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is counting the decision as a win for the public.

The lawsuit was a result in part of a strategy unveiled by his predecessor to ensure greater scrutiny of development proposals in fire-prone areas through more aggressive intervention by the Department of Justice in environmental lawsuits.

The ruling “affirms a basic fact: Local governments and developers have a responsibility to take a hard look at projects that exacerbate wildfire risk and endanger our communities,” Bonta said in statement Thursday. “We can’t keep making shortsighted land use decisions that will have impacts decades down the line. We must build responsibly.”

Forests, Land UseCEQA, EIR, wildfire evacuation, wildfires