The Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, along with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), launched several new tools this month to track the state’s wildfire resilience efforts. At the Task Force’s Sierra Nevada Regional Meeting in South Lake Tahoe, leaders presented updated dashboards showing significant progress in wildfire treatments and prevention.
Key updates include the Interagency Treatment Dashboard, which now displays wildfire resilience work conducted in 2021, 2022, and 2023. More than one million acres of treatments were performed on 700,000 footprint acres in 2023 alone, with a notable increase in prescribed fire treatments, which more than doubled since 2021. These efforts are moving California closer to its goal of treating more than a million acres by the end of 2025.
Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, highlighted the importance of tracking this work. “Thanks to historic investments, dozens of local agencies and hundreds of organizations are delivering these projects. Now, for the first time, we have a dashboard that tracks all these diverse projects in one place and on one map,” Crowfoot said.
CAL FIRE also introduced its Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard, designed to show the real-time impact of wildfire prevention projects. By using this tool, the public can see how fuel treatments affect wildfire behavior and improve firefighting efforts.
The Task Force will continue to advance its efforts, with the next meeting scheduled for December 13 in Sacramento, where the latest scientific findings on wildfire resilience will be discussed.
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet News Hour and The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.