Newsom's Wildfire Plan Is Less Than 1% Complete!
Wildfire prevention is one of the biggest issues in California politics. Every year, after another devastating fire season, our leaders promise they'll clear the brush, improve our water supply, and cut through the red tape standing in the way of critical projects. But promises mean nothing if they never become reality.
A new investigation is revealing that despite years of promises from our Governor, California has completed less than 1% of its wildfire prevention commitments.[1] At some point, we have to stop calling this “failed leadership” and start calling it what it is: Californians are being lied to, and it doesn’t just stop at the state level but impacts you today.
What Was Promised
Let’s start with the promise that was made, because it was a big one. In March 2025, Governor Newsom issued an emergency proclamation specifically targeting wildfire prevention. This was in light of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires that burned through thousands of acres just two months prior. The Governor’s plan was to fast-track projects like brush clearance, forest thinning, and prescribed burns – work that is supposed to reduce the fuel available to wildfires before they start. In fact, the Governor’s office set aside $170 million in state funding to manage roughly 100,000 acres of land identified for this kind of fire management. He even announced an emergency declaration, which was supposed to clear the path to treating that land and doing so quickly.[2]
By the fall of 2025, Newsom’s office was touting what they called “300 projects fast-tracked in 300 days,”[3] framing it as proof of real momentum on these promises. If you read that headline and moved on, you’d think things were going well! But if you look at what’s actually in that list of approved projects, the picture starts to look very different.
What Has Been Done
So, what is the reality? What has really been done so far?
Well, this month, researchers at City Journal filed a public records request with California’s fire authorities. What they found is staggering. Of the nearly 100,000 acres that had been approved under Newsom’s emergency declaration, approximately 798 acres had actually been treated and completed.[4] Think about that! Just a few hundred, under one thousand acres, have actually been treated, when there were 100,000 approved!
That is less than one percent. Let me say that again: less than ONE PERCENT.
So, when you go back and look at that “300 projects in 300 days” claim, you start to see how the number was, obviously, inflated. The list includes a 0.24-acre tree-pruning project near Camp Nelson, a 0.36-acre project to fell trees near Thousand Oaks, and a six-acre vegetation management effort along a transmission line in Sonoma County.[5] These are not the sweeping prevention projects Californians were told were happening! They were tiny projects getting knocked off the list to produce a much bigger-sounding number, even though they were not doing much to actually move forward change in our state regarding mass wildfire prevention.
Even setting aside the size of these particular projects, of the full list of approved projects, only about 13% had been completed as of last month. When City Journal pressed the California Natural Resources Agency for specifics, an agency official ultimately admitted that only “798 footprint acres” had actually been finished, and that the agency couldn’t “anticipate how much progress” had been made on the rest.[6]
Now, you may be thinking, well these things take time. At least our state is aware that these projects need to happen, and it’s fairly normal for them to move slower than originally promised or anticipated. But real-world examples of even local attempts to push forward wildfire prevention projects reveal that might just not be the case. Take for example the San Ramon Valley Fire District, which is located east of San Francisco.
This district wanted to do mitigation work on California State Parks land in an area the state itself classifies as a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.” They had a detailed plan, they had secured their own local funding and were ready to start. This is great! This is local government getting to work and removing barriers like funding or labor needed to carry it out. But then the state got involved. California State Parks imposed restrictions on treating protected plant species, mandatory cultural and habitat monitoring requirements, and oversight fees. The result was that the district completed work on just 22 of the 300 acres they had planned, and roughly 75 cents of every dollar in their budget went to state-mandated compliance costs, not actual fire prevention![7]
Does this sound like our state is actually prioritizing “fast-tracking” wildfire prevention and brush management projects? No! They are actively stepping in to slow down these projects and make them so burdensome that they can’t get done. This is the opposite of what we were promised would happen by our Governor.
Statewide Barriers to Progress
To understand why this is happening, we need to understand two things: CEQA and the budget.
CEQA, which I have mentioned before, stands for the California Environmental Quality Act. It’s the state’s main environmental review law, and it requires that most land management projects go through an extensive approval process before any work can begin. This means following steps like conducting initial studies, submitting Environmental Impact Reports, holding public comment periods, performing alternatives analyses, and obtaining agency certifications. For even just a straightforward vegetation management project, that process can take several months. For more complex ones, it can take well over a year.[8] It is a huge bottleneck and pain to getting anything done in our state.
Newsom’s emergency declaration provided a way for certain projects to skip the CEQA process entirely, which sounded like a really good thing. But there was a catch: the exemption only applied to projects under 3,000 acres, and the window to apply for that exemption expired in May 2026.[9] Which means it’s already over. So, what was presented to Californians as bold action was, in reality, a narrow and temporary workaround to bureaucracy that the state itself created.
Now let’s talk about money, because the budget tells you everything about priorities. Under Newsom’s tenure, California’s overall state budget has grown by more than $106 billion. His proposed 2026-27 budget is a record-breaking $355 billion.[10] And yet, in that same period, funding specifically for wildfire and forest resilience has gone in exactly the opposite direction. It peaked at $1.1 billion in 2022, fell to $620 million this year, and Newsom’s proposed budget would cut it further to $457 million. On top of that, the state cut $101 million from wildfire programs in fiscal year 2025, which was the year before the Palisades fire. So, while the overall budget grew by $106 billion, wildfire funding was cut by nearly $650 million from its peak.[11]
These are choices. They reflect what our leaders have decided to prioritize, and protecting Californians from wildfires has clearly not been near the top of that list.
Local Impacts
The most important, and devasting, part of this failed policy, is that it does not stop with statewide failures, but impacts local communities most. I just mentioned the example of the San Ramon Valley – every delayed project and every acre left untreated affects the people who actually live there. And perhaps no community illustrates this better than Los Angeles and the tragedy of Pacific Palisades. When wildfire prevention projects are delayed, stalled by bureaucracy, or never completed at all, the consequences are destroyed homes, displaced families, and communities forever changed – and we saw that happen in real time.
We know the failures that happened to lead to such a disaster, I have covered many of them in previous articles. Which brings us to a breaking news story of a newly filed lawsuit over the city’s poor wildfire management.
Spencer Pratt – yes! Pratt is back! – had a home in the Pacific Palisades, as we know from his campaign. He has been vocal about it, and it is what invigorated him to run for mayor of the city. He is filing a lawsuit that centers specifically on the LADWP and the water system failure, particularly the empty Santa Ynez Reservoir. The most surprising part of this is that Pratt announced Kenneth Bass, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass’s own brother, is joining in the legal action as well. They are both part of a multi-plaintiff master lawsuit targeting 18 public and private defendants, including the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison.[12]
Why does this lawsuit matter? Well, when the mayor’s own family is suing her city over the fire response, it clearly becomes about more than partisan politics. This is not a political opponent, this is her brother – who lost his home, who is saying the city failed him. That confirms what so many residents already know – the failures of the Palisades fire were not partisan failures. They were a symptom of broader policy choices and priorities set in our state that have failed the people of California year after year.
Why This Matters for You
Here’s where we are, more than a year after the fire. Fewer than a dozen homes have been rebuilt out of the nearly 16,000 structures destroyed. The CEQA process that makes wildfire prevention nearly impossible is still largely intact. Wildfire funding is being cut further in this year’s proposed budget. Karen Bass is running for reelection. And Gavin Newsom, whose emergency declarations produced less than 1% completion on the prevention work he personally promised, is now proposing to cut that budget even more.
These are the same leaders who will come before voters and ask for trust, more authority, and bigger budgets. The question is whether Californians will hold them to the results rather than the intentions.
Our state is not going to stop having wildfires. That is simply not on the table. What is on the table is whether the people responsible for preventing them are going to be held to what they actually said they would do. At some point, voters have to stop measuring leadership by the sincerity of the promises they make and start measuring it by whether the work is getting done.
Stewardship requires responsibility. Leadership requires accountability. Protecting human life requires more than good intentions. Californians deserve leaders who understand that every delayed project, every bureaucratic obstacle, and every broken promise carries a real human cost.
We cannot control when wildfires happen, but we can absolutely control whether we continue accepting a government that repeatedly promises prevention and repeatedly fails to deliver it.
References:
[1] Rufo, Christopher F., Shawn Regan, and Kenneth Schrupp. “Gavin Newsom Broke His Promise About California’s Fire Management Work.” Christopher F. Rufo (blog), June 10, 2026. https://christopherrufo.com/p/gavin-newsom-broke-his-promise-about.
[2] Lazo, Alejandro. “California Sets Aside $170 Million to Thin Vegetation, Forests to Help Prevent Wildfires,” CalMatters, January 9, 2026, https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/04/california-funding-help-prevent-wildfires/.
[3] Governor Gavin Newsom. “California Announces 300 Wildfire Projects Fast-tracked in 300 Days | Governor of California.” Governor of California, March 20, 2026. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/03/20/california-announces-300-wildfire-projects-fast-tracked-in-300-days/.
[4] Rufo, Christopher, Shawn Regan, and Kenneth Schrupp. “Gavin Newsom Broke His Promise About California’s Fire Management Work.” City Journal, June 10, 2026. https://www.city-journal.org/article/california-fire-management-gavin-newsom.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Freeman, James. “What Will It Take for California Pols to Reduce Fire Risk?” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2026. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-will-it-take-for-california-pols-to-reduce-fire-risk-90e4b31b?eafs_enabled=false.
[10] Miller, Betty. “CA Legislature Approves Record $355 Billion Budget Amid Tax Increase Criticism.” The Desert Review, June 16, 2026. https://www.thedesertreview.com/news/state/ca-legislature-approves-record-355-billion-budget-amid-tax-increase-criticism/article_aca3cbe0-7d5f-4309-9416-aec3e9718816.html.
[11] Rufo, Regan, and Schrupp, “Gavin Newsom Broke His Promise About California’s Fire Management Work,” June 10, 2026.
[12] Wright, Tracy. “Spencer Pratt Unites With Karen Bass’ Brother to Sue the LA Mayor Over Palisades Fire Destruction.” Fox News, June 14, 2026. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/spencer-pratt-unites-karen-bass-brother-sue-la-mayor-palisades-fire-destruction.
