California’s wildfire season is now nearly a year-round danger, as was seen by the devastating, fast-moving fires that swept through the Los Angeles area in January.
Fueled by the effects of climate change, wildfires across the state are also growing larger and more unpredictable, and impacting the lives of more Californians.
Earlier this year Cal Fire — the state’s firefighting agency — released an updated set of fire hazard maps, the first in almost 15 years. These new maps focus on cities, counties and other incorporated or urban areas, and place nearly four million residents in areas deemed “high” or “very high” fire hazard.
In the face of these growing hazards, fire officials advise residents living in these areas to take mitigation measures, from home hardening to creating defensible space. At the same time, Cal Fire continues to add additional personnel and equipment, and state lawmakers expedited millions of dollars for wildfire prevention and response.
State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant recently joined CapRadio’s Chris Nichols for a wide-ranging conversation about these new maps, and how Cal Fire and communities are preparing for peak wildfire season.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Wildfire outlook and preparedness
We’ve recently been experiencing some windy and warm weather. How are conditions looking, are there any hotspots around the state that Cal Fire is watching?
We've already had an extremely busy and destructive start to our fire year. The January fires in Los Angeles have already set us into the record books. But we have seen rainfall across much of California. But the wind begins to dry conditions out.
Really, our outlook for the month of May is a typical fire activity level. But as we get into June, much of the Sacramento Valley - Redding all the way down into Sacramento along the I-5 corridor - we start to move into more of an above normal fire potential. And as we move deeper into the summer we're going to likely see more monsoonal weather conditions, which means for us in the fire service, dry lightning. That could be above normal for us this summer.
Does Cal Fire have enough personnel to manage these upcoming challenges, especially with the wildfire season getting longer?
We've seen major investments in our fire response, more firefighters, more fire equipment. Just last week, the governor announced and displayed our second C-130 air tanker that we’ve been adding to the fleet. We’ve been replacing our helicopters… investing in technologies, cameras, detections. So we are definitely ready for this year. We’ve been staffing up earlier, staffing more fire engines and equipment year-round. But we are, with a number of investments by the legislature led by the governor, continuing to hire more seasonal firefighters, and that will continue as we go into the summer months.
Speaking of that second C-130, what does having a second air tanker like that give your agency the opportunity to do?
For decades we have been very proud of our air fleet, the fact that we have the largest civil air fleet in the world. But [for] larger air tankers, we've long contracted with fixed-wing aircraft to augment our response. Now owning our own ensures that here in California we have those aircraft immediately ready for response.The contracted aircraft, we're competing against all of our western states… we’re not the only one dealing with this wildfire crisis.
The C-130 though [is] just one of many tools in our air fleet. Really even our air fleet is just one of many tools that we use in fighting fires. It's the boots on the ground that extinguish them, but that's aided with our bulldozers, our helicopters, our hand crews and our fixed-wing aircraft.
Mapping hazard and risk
Shifting over to the new fire safety maps, why does California produce them? How long has the state been doing this?
For several years, we have been developing a new model incorporating the latest science and technology into depicting the level of hazard that exists across our state. We had not updated it in almost 15 years. It's really important for us to map hazard because this map is primarily used to tie critical wildfire mitigations like how we build homes, the requirements for roadway widths, water supply. All the things we need to allow for evacuation, but also for the protection of those communities...the map is really important for us for planning purposes.
This latest version incorporates a lot more areas. Not only are we seeing more areas designated in fire hazard than we saw 15 years ago, but it's also important to note that this map incorporates more areas because the previous map only mapped the highest tier of hazard. Legislation changed and required us to map all levels of hazard. This new map is now a better reflection of the conditions our firefighters have been experiencing for years.
What are the different fire zones, and what do they signify?
The map is based on hazard, and hazard is looking at physical conditions that create the likelihood and the expected fire behavior that we are going to see. We use factors like weather conditions, fuel type, topography, past fire history… and with a scientific formula we break our level of hazard into three categories - very high, high and moderate.
Based on those various levels we tie different mitigations to them. [If] you're in the highest level of hazard we require homes to be built to a higher standard, we require more water supply and roadway width. We require defensible space. And as you move down those levels of hazard, the mitigation starts to decrease
But what's really important is to understand that while hazard stays the same relatively for decades… it's risk that can change overnight. You can have leaves fall off your tree and accumulate at your home. You can buy down your risk, you can't change your hazard. But, you can reduce your wildfire risk by creating defensible space especially around the first five feet of your home with nothing combustible, hardening your home, or retrofitting your home. These are really important mitigations that have been proven over and over now to work.
If people want to know more about these fire hazard maps, where can they go?
The map is available on our website at fire.ca.gov. You can even put in your address and go right to your area. The maps that we just released this year are for cities and counties, for the incorporated or more urban areas. Those local jurisdictions are now required to adopt them by local ordinance. There could be changes based on local conditions, they can add areas to it. I suggest you check with your local city or your local county.
I'd also note that if you want to learn how to reduce your risk, we have a website readyforwildfire.org where you can learn all the steps.
After the Los Angeles fires there were questions raised about the approach Cal Fire took with its maps, and whether the agency was too conservative. How do you respond to these questions about Cal Fire’s approach?
This is where we get into the complications of hazard versus risk. Hazard, again, are those factors that don't change frequently…where risk is really based on other conditions, other modifications. And the LA fires really were not wildfires. They were really a conflagration…when the homes themselves become the fuel and they spread from one home to the next using flammable pathways, like connected fencing or privacy shrubs. Our maps are not there to predict how much damage is going to occur.
We look back to the 2017 fires in Santa Rosa, even the Paradise Fire, the Camp Fire in 2018…. when homes become the fuel and spread like dominoes. That's not something we've ever mapped, and really that science does not truly exist. While there's risk models that tell us what level of risk… that's not the intent of these maps. But we still need to do more to prepare, especially our urban communities, for the impact of these types of large conflagration fires.
Funding and partners
New state legislation recently allocated more than $170 million to help with clearing vegetation and forest thinning to reduce wildfire risks. How are those efforts going and how effective can they be, given that California has millions of acres of forest land?
We have continued on working to address this wildfire crisis. We have a very strong strategy. It's called the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. It notates over 99 key actions, really focused in three key areas - response (equipment, firefighters, technology), forest health (addressing our overgrown forest, putting more prescribed fire on the ground), then partial mitigations like we've talked about (defensible space, home hardening efforts.)
We have made major strides in the last several years. We set a goal of trying to treat, within Cal Fire’s jurisdiction, 100,000 acres through fuel reduction and prescribed fire. Last year we did 130,000 acres, and that’s part of a larger statewide plan where we treat a million acres with our federal, local, [and] tribal partners. But you brought up a really good point. The state of California is over 100 million acres. So we're not going to turn the Titanic of this wildfire crisis around overnight.
We've got to continue to stay focused. We continue to invest money. The climate bond - Prop 4 - that was on the ballot in November will provide continued funding for several years to come, so we can continue our focus towards our wildfire strategy efforts.
We have a new presidential administration in Washington D.C. There’s been a lot of moves to reduce federal funding. Is Cal Fire in any way vulnerable to federal cutbacks?
Cal Fire is funded through the state’s legislature, general fund, and some other special funds. But, I have to stress that we work very closely with our federal partners. Forty percent of California is owned by the federal government and so the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, just to name a couple of federal land owners… we work very closely with them. I can’t dive into the politics… obviously our governor is very much keeping his pulse on making sure that Washington is taking care of the federal lands here in California.
What I can assure you is that our efforts to coordinate with our federal agencies here in California, to make sure they're taking care of their fire issues and that we're aligned in our strategies - that that happens every single day despite what you hear on the news, or see or hear out of Washington.
There's new legislation at the capital that would allow seasonal Cal Fire firefighters to be employed year-round. How significant would this change be?
There's a lot of legislation related to wildfires whether it be staffing, wildfire mitigation, forest health, a lot of focus, rightfully so by our state legislature. While we're still analyzing many of those bills and working with the administration… I will tell you that we have now been for several years on this path to ensure that we not only have adequate staffing, adding thousands of additional firefighting positions, but also making sure that we're taking care of the health and welfare of our firefighters.
A lot of that has to do with how many days they have to work straight. The administration has been very supportive of reducing our work week to a more traditional fire service work week.That has continued to be our effort… we're making sure that our firefighters are getting the time off they need, and that we have enough of them to respond to more fires.
Copyright 2025 CapRadio