Gov. Newsom cut fire budget by $100M months before lethal California fires

A reappraisal of past year's California authorities fund shows California Gov. Gavin Newsom chopped backing for wildfire and wood resilience by much than $100 million.

The budget, signed successful June and covering the 2024-25 fiscal year, eliminated $101 cardinal from 7 "wildfire and wood resilience" programs, according to a study from Newsweek.

The California fires, liable for destroying much than 10,000 buildings successful the Los Angeles area, are inactive not contained.

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES DEVASTATE LOS ANGELES COUNTY, KILLING 5 AND THREATENING THOUSANDS OF HOMES

Fire crews conflict the Kenneth Fire successful the West Hills conception of Los Angeles Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025.  (Ethan Swope/AP)

Cal Fire had a $5 cardinal simplification successful spending connected substance simplification teams, including funds utilized to wage for vegetation absorption enactment by the California National Guard, the study noted.

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Other changes:

• $28 cardinal chopped from aggregate authorities conservancies that grow wildfire resilience
• $12 cardinal chopped from a "home hardening" experimentation that would support homes from wildfires
• $8 cardinal chopped from monitoring and probe spending, mostly dedicated to Cal Fire and authorities universities
• $4 cardinal chopped from the wood bequest program, which encourages landowners to negociate their properties
• $3 cardinal chopped from backing for an inter-agency wood information hub

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, surveys harm successful Pacific Palisades with Cal Fire's Nick Schuler Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, successful Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Newsom's manager of communications, Izzy Gardon, called the fund cuts a "ridiculous lie," successful a connection to Fox News Digital Friday night.

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"The politician has doubled the size of our firefighting army, built the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet and the authorities has accrued the wood absorption ten-fold since helium took office," she wrote. "Facts matter."

The devastation of the Palisades Fire successful the Pacific Palisades vicinity of Los Angeles Friday, Jan. 10, 2025.  (AP Photo/John Locher)

His bureau attached statistic that notation to the wide summation successful spending and unit implicit a fig of years since helium took bureau successful 2019, arsenic opposed to commenting connected the astir caller cuts.

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Cal Fire did not instantly respond to a petition for remark arsenic of 8 p.m. Friday.