What you need to know: Governor Newsom is proclaiming a state of emergency to fast-track critical forest management projects - part of the state’s ongoing efforts to protect communities from catastrophic wildfire.

SACRAMENTO - Following the devastation of the Los Angeles firestorms and with the risk of wildfire increasing statewide, Governor Gavin Newsom today proclaimed a state of emergency to fast-track critical projects protecting communities from wildfire, ahead of peak fire season. 

Today’s emergency proclamation will cut bureaucratic red tape - including suspending CEQA and the Coastal Act - that is slowing down critical forest management projects. Text of the proclamation is available here. 

This year has already seen some of the most destructive wildfires in California history, and we’re only in March. Building on unprecedented work cutting red tape and making historic investments – we’re taking action with a state of emergency to fast-track critical wildfire projects even more.

These are the forest management projects we need to protect our communities most vulnerable to wildfire, and we’re going to get them done. - Governor Gavin Newsom

This action builds on years of work to increase forest management and wildfire resilience in the state. It also follows the Governor’s executive order signed last month to further improve community hardening and wildfire mitigation strategies to increase neighborhood resilience statewide.

How it works

Today’s proclamation includes:

• Suspending environmental regulations, including CEQA and the Coastal Act, as needed to expedite fuels reduction projects. Projects include vegetation and tree removal, adding fuel breaks, prescribed fire, and more.
• Allowing non-state entities to conduct approved fuels reduction work with expedited and streamlined approval.
• Directing state agencies to submit recommendations for increasing the pace and scale of prescribed fire.
• Increasing the California Vegetation Treatment Program’s (CalVTP) efficiency and utilization, in order to continue promoting rapid environmental review for large wildfire risk reduction treatments.

Governor Newsom took similar action in March 2019 to expedite forest management projects ahead of particularly challenging fire seasons in 2019 and 2020.

More forest management and prescribed burns than ever before

• Preventing wildfire through forest and land management. The state is investing $2.5 billion to ramp up and implement the Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, increasing the pace of fuel reduction, prescribed fire, and forest health. 100% of the 99 key actions outlined in the plan are underway or completed. This is in addition to $200 million invested annually through 2028-29 for healthy forest and fire prevention programs.
• Using controlled burns to build community and forest resilience. California launched a strategic plan on beneficial fire to expand the use of prescribed fire and cultural burning to build forest and community resilience. Key goals from the plan are already in action to increase the use of prescribed fires, and prescribed fire activity has nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023.
• Tracking wildfire prevention. California recently unveiled newly updated, first-of-their-kind dashboards that will help Californians track the state’s wildfire prevention work.
• Early action. One of the very first executive actions Governor Newsom took after assuming office was to declare a state of emergency in response to wildfires in 2019. This order, in part, exempted critical wildfire and forest management projects from California’s environmental law (CEQA).

See all of Governor Newsom’s actions to increase wildfire resilience and forest management.