It is turning out to be a difficult fire season.
“We have almost doubled the number of fires that we had this year from last year, in the first seven months of this year,” said CAL FIRE State Fire Marshal Mike Richwine.
But Richwine says the agency is also more prepared and aggressive than they have been in years past.
“Just painting the hillsides with that pink fire retardant, because our goal is to stop every fire at 10 acres,” he said. “So we’re being aggressive with our aircraft and with our crews.”
Each fire is met with more aircraft and tankers in order to meet that ambitious goal.
The state government has also stepped up its prevention efforts.
“There have been hundreds of legislative proposals and numerous executive orders that have been acted to increase the pace and scale of our wildfire planning and prevention efforts,” said Richwine.
Those efforts include Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that the state will hire more than 800 firefighters through October. “Even though we are now in a deficit we’re still prioritizing wildfire preparation,” Richwine said.
Another key element of fire prevention is the now year-round education effort, such as the wildfire safety town hall that Richwine spoke at Thursday, which was hosted by California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
CAL FIRE officials say residents can start their fire prevention efforts by looking up their address on the Cal OES website to see their level of fire risk.