California Senate Passes Sweeping Wildfire Resilience Package
Press release from the Office of Senate Pro Tem, Mike McGuire:
Palisades Fire
The California State Senate took sweeping and decisive action to protect Californians from devastating wildfires today by advancing the Golden State Commitment package. The package of 13 bills is a comprehensive legislative effort to strengthen California’s wildfire response and recovery efforts, help stabilize the state’s insurance market, streamline rebuilding after disasters and make communities more wildfire safe.
The package, which has bipartisan support, was announced in early February in direct response to the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed over 16,000 structures and tragically took 29 lives.
As California continues to face a year-round fire season, with wildfires becoming more devastating and destructive, the Senate is moving with speed to strengthen California’s defenses against future disasters and help Californians rebuild their homes and lives after a disaster.
The Golden State Commitment legislative package will do the following:
Wildfire Recovery Measures:
- Speed-up residential rebuilds
- Provide property tax relief, post-disaster
- Protect consumers from price gouging
- Expand insurance protections for small businesses
- Expand protections for homeowners, tenants, and mobile home residents
- Expedite the rebuilding of health facilities
- Strengthen penalties against looters and those who impersonate public safety personnel
- Provide desperately needed resources for impacted school districts
Fire Prevention and Response Measures:
- Transition all 3,000 seasonal CAL FIRE firefighters to full-time, permanent status
- Establish an insurance community hardening commission that will ensure more fire safe communities and ensure that homeowners can secure traditional homeowners insurance
- Advance new policies that require fire-safe landscaping, setbacks, and inspections in high fire hazard zones
“The devastating LA fires were a stark reminder of the harsh new reality we are living in here in the Golden State. With an unrelenting year-round fire season, we must do more to make our communities safe from wildfires, and this comprehensive package of 13 pieces of legislation does just that,” Pro Tem Mike McGuire said. “This package of bills, with bipartisan support, will help California prepare for and prevent the next wildfire and help stabilize communities in the aftermath of a disaster. This hardworking group of Senators came together in our state’s time of need and moved with speed to advance this bold legislative package that will make California more fire safe and resilient for years to come.”
One of the key pieces of the Golden State Commitment is the Fight for Firefighters Act authored by Senate President pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-North Coast), which passed the Senate on a 39-0 vote. The Fight for Firefighters Act, SB 581, would allow the state to phase out seasonal firefighters and transition those 3,000 firefighters to full time status.
The Golden State Commitment package includes bills authored by Pro Tem McGuire and Senators Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera), Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento), Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton), Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), Laura Richardson (D-San Pedro), Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles), Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), and Aisha Wahab (D-Silicon Valley).
A full description of the package with bill numbers is attached.
GoldenStateWildfirePackage
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This is great!
Not the same when california has burned down paradise, Los Angeles a million acres in Ruth lake. And five years later our moron politicians pass a bill.
Your comment is fine, but I don’t think you meant to say a million acres in Ruth Lake. A million acres is fine for the total of all the places in California that have burned. I am just guessing and not try to put you down in anyway.
Yes, it’s a great press release but is unlikely to reign in the insurance companies — but it will drive up State costs and housing costs — and what a coincidence — 19 out of 19 of the bills authors are Democrats — this has more to do with electoral politics than it does with fire safety.
Oh boy, more ‘commissions’ and regulations.
Bi-partisan ? They only list SF/LA Dems as authors ?
>”This hardworking group of Senators.”
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Read the bills or summaries. Most all the bills are partisan or mostly partisan.
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Heh… SB 616.
>”… limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.”
>”This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.”
Heh… they don’t want the public to know what’s going on the the ‘commission’…
or the legislature !!!
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Go figure.
They need to defund CARB and bring in fuels form out of state. every other state is paying $2 LESS/ gallon.
Climate change makes wildfires worse.
Then why did so much more acreage burn prior to 1960?
From the USFS
This graph needs an actual citation to provide context and explanation, I couldn’t easily find the report containing that graph.
Prior to 1980 and consistent remote-sensing methodology, acreage estimates for area burned were fairly unreliable and were dependent on local estimates which varied wildly. Wildland fire suppression was also still in its infancy prior to WWII (The USFS was established in 1905 NPS in 1916). Following WWII many of the technologies developed for the war effort as well surplus military equipment became commonplace in wildland fire suppression.
Because the USFS wasn’t fully staffed up in those decades
About to be A LOT more by next year….
I agree with your comment 100%
Thousands of acres of snags resulting from previous fires in Northern California await the next fire to create a raging inferno. Yet here on the coast we can’t have trees or shrubbery in our yards.
They are congratulating themselves for taking years to do this?! Opportunists is what they mostly are. Predators maybe 2nd and public servants probably down near 5th.
I vividly remember driving through the Santa Rosa fire zone a year after the fire. It had happened in an old fire scar so you can guess it will happen there again- wind patterns, topography lead to repeated/ expected fire movement. Anyways houses were being rebuilt. A couple made of cement or hardi-board w metal roofs. Mostly houses being rebuilt w/ wood frame and wood siding, asphalt shingle!! WTF! I guess you can do that when the liability is included in future insurance costs that are spread out amongst all of us….even those of us not living in fire zones or building smart! The spreading out of costs between the entire population while allowing idiots to do stupid crap and be covered by the rest of us? That’s the problem w CA. Of course the predatory insurance corporations and our predatory representatives work together to keep it this way and just keep taxing the working class folks for this….but don’t get me started!!!
“Advance new policies that require fire-safe landscaping, setbacks, and inspections in high fire hazard zones”? Well there goes urban gardening. Shade for heat reduction in summer. Pollution and noise control. We’re now going to celebrate De-Arbor Day. As for inspections… prepare to meet the locked gate.
Too little too late…This is just more feel-good BS from Sacramento that accomplishes absolutely nothing.