Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that additional federal resources are badly needed to help fight wildfires.
"It just can’t happen soon enough because of the consequences of what we’re all experiencing all across the Western United States,” he said.
Newsom said the U.S. Forest Service, which is responsible for managing the majority of wildfire-prone land in California, is underfunded and understaffed.
Newsom and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak toured destruction from the Tamarak Fire south of Lake Tahoe. The fire has burned nearly 70,000 acres on both sides of the California-Nevada border. They emphasized the need for speedy federal help.
“These fires do not recognize state borders. They burn across, they jump across highways,” said Sisolak.
Newsom said of the state’s partnership with neighboring Nevada, “We’re grateful for our long-standing emergency management relationships with Nevada, substantially at work in the response to this fire. Meeting our shared challenges in the years ahead will require all of us to build partnerships at a level never seen before.”
Newsom enacted a state of emergency last week for Alpine County due to the Tamarack Fire.
Firefighters are battling another major fire in the state. The Dixie Fire is the largest burning wildfire in California. It has already burned 221,504 acres over the course of 15 days in Butte and Plumas counties.
The Sacramento Bee reported its growth slowed Tuesday night, but officials warned that Thursday’s expected triple-digit temperatures and changes in humidity could bring “instability” to the area. Officials added the destructive blaze is far from over.
The Dixie Fire has destroyed 64 structures so far, according to a Thursday incident report from Cal Fire.
The Associated Press reported that more than half of those structures, 36, were in Indian Falls. The Plumas County town has a population of 53 and was all but destroyed by the fire.
Newsom noted that across the state about a half-million acres have burned so far this fire season, which is more than at this same time last year. In 2020, a record of 4.2 million acres burned across the state.