Governor Newsom Vastly Overstated Wildfire Prevention Efforts Before Record-Breaking 2020 Fire Season

Speaker 1: 00:00 In 2019 on governor Gavin Newsome his first full day in office. He declared a war on wildfires. Speaker 2: 00:08 I hear you. I get it. Uh, we need to do more and do better. These last two years have been devastating Speaker 1: 00:15 With that announcement. Newsome signed a sweeping executive order that he said would overhaul the state's approach to wildfire prevention, but did it Capitol public radio reporter Scott rod spoke with California report host, literally Jamali about that question. Here's that interview. Speaker 3: 00:33 You found that after an initial spike, the state is actually doing less wildfire prevention work under governor Newsome than under his predecessor. Talk about what you found that's right. Speaker 4: 00:43 Our investigation found that in 2020, the worst fire season in California history, wildfire prevention work dropped by half of what was done the previous year. And at the same time, Newsome had cut funding for wildfire prevention in the budget by over a hundred million dollars. And it's worth noting. That was before COVID-19 hit this year through Memorial day. We also found that the state remains below its goal for fire prevention work Newsome. Didn't talk to us for the story, but we did talk to Cal fire, chief, Tom Porter. Here's what he had to say. Speaker 5: 01:14 It's not something that I'm comfortable with. It is something that, that I am working to reconcile and to, um, uh, correct for the future. But we had an exceptional fire year. Everybody knows that the environment to do this kind of work, uh, has been very challenging and has hampered our ability to get the acres that we do have planned for. But we haven't been able to put the attention to Speaker 4: 01:40 Fire experts. I spoke to said that there's some credence to that. It was an extraordinary fire season. COVID-19 complicated things, but it also shows just how fragile the prevention infrastructure in California is, and the need to strengthen it. Because at the end of the day, fire doesn't take a break because of a pandemic or because the state's experiencing a different, Speaker 3: 02:02 Yeah. And it sounds like what chief Porter is saying there is that they did less wildfire prevention work because they had so many wildfires last year and that those fires blocked Cal fire from doing that wildfire prevention work. That is a concerning precedent, you know, over the last year or two, we've heard governor Newsome again and again, boast about these wildfire prevention projects that Cal fire had supposedly completed across the state. What has happened with those first Speaker 4: 02:32 Entered office. He asked Cal fire to give him recommendations on how the state could get its arms around the wildfire problem. Cal fire came back and they recommended dozens of fire prevention projects that would help protect some of the most vulnerable communities in California. Those projects at first represented about 90,000 acres that were going to be treated through our data review and, uh, records polling. We found that they had only about 12,000 of those acres, but nevertheless, Newsome claimed that the state had treated the full 90,000 acres. And that's important because it signals to those communities that they're being kept safe by this prevention work again in areas that are very susceptible to wildfires. Speaker 3: 03:17 Well, it's remarkable to hear that difference. 12,000 acres completed versus 90,000 acres touted. It's hard to process how the governor could be, you know, touting those numbers when they're so far from reality, even talking to fire survivors about this, what's been their reaction. The person Speaker 4: 03:36 In particular, Mitch McKenzie, who has experienced quite a bit with wildfires in recent years, he lost his home to the Tubbs fire in 2017 and had about a third of his inventory at his wine business, uh, essentially ruined by fire and smoke. Last year, he told me that he felt like he was being deceived by what Newsome had told the public. Speaker 5: 03:58 When a politician can make a statement that he's treated a hundred percent of a certain area that he lays out, and then the truth comes out that he's only treated 10% of it. I think that with the kind of fires and fire danger that we're in, in this area, that's very job. Speaker 3: 04:16 Mitch McKenzie. They're a 2017 wildfire victim weighing in as we come off the worst fire season on record. And as we brace for the year ahead, cap radio, Scott rod, thank you so much for this reporting. Thank you.