Essential California: ‘Fire season has already started’

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, April 9, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

“Let’s be realistic,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told Californians on Thursday, standing not far from where the massive Creek fire scorched almost 380,000 acres beginning last September. “Fire season has already started.”

California wildfire season once marked a specific period of time, typically concentrated in the summer and fall. But in today’s reality, it’s more a way of life than a calendar distinction. The 2017 Thomas fire burned through Christmas. Earlier this week — on the first Monday in April — firefighters responded to a brush fire in the Angeles National Forest, the third small blaze in the area in two days.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders presented a sweeping wildfire plan to boost firefighting efforts and a variety of prevention measures.

[Read the story: “California unveils sweeping wildfire prevention plan amid record fire losses and drought” in the Los Angeles Times]

As my Sacramento colleague John Myers reports, the $536-million proposal, which the Legislature could send to the governor’s desk as soon as Monday, marks an early agreement by the governor and lawmakers to spend more than half of the $1 billion in wildfire funding Newsom called for in his state budget proposal in January.

Last year was the worst fire season in California history. Present drought conditions are raising fears that fire conditions could be even worse this year, bringing critical urgency to the state’s fire prevention and suppression plans.

John reports that most of the money earmarked in the proposal would come from California’s general fund, the state’s main bank account for government programs. More than $350 million would be spent on fire prevention and suppression efforts, including prescribed fires and other projects designed to reduce the vegetation growth that has fueled California’s most devastating fires. The package also includes $25 million for fortifying older homes that weren’t built using fire-resistance methods required during construction over the last decade, according to an outline provided by legislative staff.

“This is a huge amount of money,” Paul Mason, vice president of policy and incentives for the Pacific Forest Trust, told John of the $536-million package. “This is at least double what we’ve ever done as a state in the past.”

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

Newsom’s plan to reopen California may be less risky than it seems: Public health experts say it’s unlikely that another surge of the virus would overwhelm the hospital system in California. Absent a new variant or mutation that renders vaccines ineffective across the country, they believe the chance that Newsom would need to reinstate the kinds of restrictions that frustrated some voters and helped fuel the recall is almost nil. Los Angeles Times

Tracking California’s dizzying road to reopening: The Times tracked decisions in the state’s 58 counties for the entire year, building a database of every change that affected five types of businesses. A typical business owner faced seven rule changes over the course of the year. Multiplied across all of the counties and all five of the business types, public health departments made more than 2,000 rule changes statewide. Los Angeles Times

(Sandhya Kambhampati and Maloy Moore / Los Angeles Times)

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L.A. STORIES

Los Angeles public schools will begin phased reopening next week. Here’s what you need to know. Los Angeles Times

[See also: “Parents sue LAUSD and push for wider reopening and no COVID tests” in the Los Angeles Times]

Space Force’s acquisitions and tech division will be based in the L.A. area. The Los Angeles Air Force Base’s Space and Missile Systems Center in El Segundo will become the headquarters of the planned division, which is named Space Systems Command. Los Angeles Times

L.A. poet Amanda Gorman is on the cover of the May issue of Vogue. Doreen St. Félix profiles Gorman for the cover story. Vogue

Downtown Los Angeles is but one “center” of a city that grew out, rather than up. That was (mostly) on purpose. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Politicians dread the sting of #KHive, the fervent online fans of Vice President Kamala Harris. The name is a riff on Beyoncé’s loyal fanbase known as the Beyhive. Los Angeles Times

Four women say the mayor of a Sonoma County town sexually assaulted them. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office launched a criminal investigation into Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli, and more than a dozen local and state lawmakers demanded that Foppoli resign or be removed from office in response to a Chronicle investigation published Thursday morning. San Francisco Chronicle

CRIME AND COURTS

Judge halts construction of massive Tejon Ranch development: Failure to adequately address wildfire risks and greenhouse gas emissions could jeopardize plans for a sprawling development near the Tehachapi Mountains near Kern County. Los Angeles Times

[See also: “A thorny land conservation dispute takes root in the wilds of Tejon Ranch” in the Los Angeles Times]

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Volunteers are stepping up to provide Santa Barbara County’s most vulnerable residents with free rides to vaccine appointments. “A lot of our clients don’t have family or friends in the area, and a lot of the time those volunteers are the ones bridging that gap and helping them get back into the world.” Santa Maria Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

“Feeding your record collection in a pandemic always comes at a cost.” A lovely dispatch about finding joy in the hunt for physical media — even when it feels like an unnecessary extravagance during underemployed hard times. Defector

UC Riverside has a high share of underserved students, but its students fall far behind their UC peers when it comes to receiving essential services. Although the University of California considers itself one system, its 286,000 students do not have access to equal resources and services across its 10 campuses. Los Angeles Times

Congratulations to Pamela Turntine, the new editor-in-chief of Berkeleyside. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has been a longtime editor for the Oakland Tribune, East Bay Times and the Mercury News. Berkeleyside

A poem to start your Friday: “Bay Poem from Berkeley” by Sandra Cisneros. A Poem a Day

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: partly cloudy, 73. San Diego: partly cloudy, 70. San Francisco: potentially windy enough to make you feel something, anything, if only for a moment, 57. San Jose: partly cloudy, 64. Fresno: sunny, 81. Sacramento: sunny, 77.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory comes from Denise Piscitello:

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.