The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank is partnering with the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to provide loans to companies in the forestry and agriculture-related fields. This needs to happen now, not in four years.Īnother aim of the wildfire package is to create a market around the wood in California. The government is waiting until 2025 to double its current treatment levels from 250,000 acres to 500,000 acres. Newsom claims to be taking early action to protect high-risk communities from the coming wildfire season, but it's too little too late. For hundreds of years, native Californians practiced prescribed burns to clear the underbrush that adds dangerous fuel when a fire starts without human intervention. One of the ways to protect the land is by prescribed burns. These large redwoods normally don't burn, but drought, a bark beetle that killed millions of trees, and years of untouched forest land have created an environment primed for a fire.

A healthy ground floor is essential in the decomposition of tree stumps and logs, which can add dangerous amounts of fuel.Ĭalifornia has a unique ecosystem with multiple mountain ranges and massive trees. To have a healthy forest, diseased trees and underbrush need to be cleared so new growth can occur. Healthy forests are an ecosystem of growth, death, and composition. One of the largest problems with the package is that it promises to restore healthy forests and lands, but decades of mismanagement have created this colossal issue.

This is not a problem Newsom's $536 million dollar package can solve. Since the early 2000s, the wildfires have gotten hotter and stronger and have burned with a deeper intensity. After four hours, the entire town was reduced to smoldering ash. Others in the town were stuck on a bus or trapped under fire retardant blankets at a gas station. It was the grace of God that a neighbor told her to evacuate.

My grandma was babysitting her grandchildren while the parents were at work. It was in this fire that my family nearly died. It’s become the deadliest fire in California’s history. The 2018 Paradise Fire, also known as the Camp Fire, destroyed 11,000 homes, damaged an area the size of Chicago, and killed 85 people. Gavin Newsom signed a $536 million dollar package to “take urgent action, build reliance in communities and help forest health.” But, like most government packages, it misses the mark.

A Shot in the Bark by C.A. Newsome