Newsom calls on Trump to boost wildfire preparedness and ‘make America rake again'

Los Angeles Times

5 days ago

As California's fire season heats up, Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for failing to devote adequate resources to wildfire preparation and response efforts on federal lands.
Newsom said his office sent the White House a proposed executive order that, if signed, would direct the federal government to match California's forest management investments and capabilities in the state.
'We made it easy,' Newsom said at a news conference at Cal Fire's Mt. Howell Lookout tower in Placer County. 'The president could sign this afternoon.'
As of Tuesday, California was actively fighting nine wildfires and much of inland Northern California was under red flag fire warnings due to the threat of lightning strikes.
'Half of the new fire starts in just over the course of the last 48 hours have been on federal land,' Newsom said. 'We need an equivalent commitment of resources — not rhetoric.'
In a statement, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said Newsom 'should own up to his failure to prepare for fire season — including his $144 million cut to wildfire funding in California.'
Kelly was referring to the state Legislature's decision last year to cut $144 million from a $2.8-billion wildfire and forest resilience fund created through a series of spending packages in 2021 and 2022 during state budget surpluses. Newsom had initially proposed a more modest $101-million decrease.
At his news conference, Newsom blasted the administration for pulling eight of the California National Guard's 14 firefighting crews into Los Angeles to respond to protests against ICE raids and for failing to match the state's investments in forest management, including prescribed burns and forest thinning, all the while proposing cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and laying off its employees.
Tuesday's news conference marked the latest escalation between Newsom and Trump, who have for years duked it out over the state's wildfire preparation and response. During his first term in 2018, Trump notoriously told Newsom that California needs to 'rake' its forest floors — a reference to ramping up forest management efforts to remove overgrown vegetation that can help fuel fires.
Newsom's office sought to turn the tables back on the president by touting the slogan 'Make America Rake Again' — as in having the U.S. pick up a greater share of fire prevention efforts. More than half of the forestland in California — 57% — falls under the purview of the federal government. The state owns and manages just 3%.
In 2021, Newsom created a wildfire and forest resilience task force, which recommended the state and federal governments manage flammable overgrowth on 1 million acres of the 33 million acres of forestlands in California every year. These include prescribed burns and forest thinning practices to remove smaller trees and flammable brush from the forest floor (a process that can include raking).
In the task force's wildfire action plan, which aims to balance ecosystem restoration, fire safety and a sustainable logging industry, the state and federal governments agreed to split the responsibility equally — 500,000 acres each — and set a deadline of 2025 to meet the goal.
In a video response to Newsom, Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) said Newsom still had not met the goal of 500,000 acres treated a year.
'He has no business criticizing the federal government,' Gallagher said.
According to a dashboard created by the task force, 727,000 acres in California received some form of treatment in 2023 — short of the combined state and federal goal of 1 million acres.
The federal government completed 36% of that work, while the state was responsible for 42% and private timber companies completed 22%.
The task force has not released numbers for 2024 or 2025. However, at the news conference, Cal Fire announced it had exceeded its prescribed fire goal, a subset of its total forest management goal, for the first time in 2025.
Meanwhile, the Forest Service — the federal government's largest firefighting entity — has lost about 3,400 employees due to layoffs and buyouts since Trump took office, potentially inhibiting the service's ability to complete forest management work.
'Cal Fire can do everything it can to try to protect the surrounding community,' said Patrick Wright, director of the task force, at Tuesday's news conference, 'but if the adjacent Forest Service land is not treated, the community is going to be at risk.'
Times staff writer Hayley Smith contributed to this report.