Rural areas got millions in state fire prevention funds over parts of L.A. that burned
- Cal Fire elected not to fund millions of dollars in Wildfire Prevention Grants over the last four years for areas that were destroyed by the Palisades fire, state records show.
- During the same period, many other projects in rural areas sometimes deemed by the state to be at lower wildfire risk received most or all of the amounts they requested.
- Records show funding went toward clearing brush with goats, repaving and other projects in sparsely populated parts of the state.
Since 2021, state authorities have repeatedly declined to fund wildfire prevention efforts in communities devastated by the Palisades fire, according to Cal Fire records, which show the agency instead poured money into projects in far-flung rural areas.
Records reviewed by The Times show Cal Fire elected not to fund more than $3.8 million in Wildfire Prevention Grants for Santa Monica Mountains communities including Pacific Palisades and Malibu over the last four years.
Meanwhile, many other projects in areas sometimes deemed by the state to be at lower wildfire risk received most or all of the amounts they requested — and in some instances even more. The sums, often in the millions of dollars, were allocated for a range of projects and tasks, including clearing brush with goats and distributing informational mailers.
Several of the funding decisions were announced less than half a year before the Palisades fire broke out last week and swept across more than 23,000 acres of communities in and near the Santa Monica Mountains. Cal Fire awarded $90.8 million worth of grants via the program for the last fiscal year.
Coverage of the fires ravaging Altadena, Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Pasadena, including stories about the devastation, issues firefighters faced and the weather.
A Cal Fire spokesperson said a total of $17.8 million has been granted for 33 Wildfire Prevention Projects in L.A. County since the 2020-21 fiscal year, with nearly 125 acres of land within five miles of the Palisades fire “treated” with brush removal and other fuel reduction efforts over the last four years.
Andrew Henning, Cal Fire’s assistant deputy director for community wildfire assistance and fire engineering and investigations, said applications for grant funds are reviewed at the local, regional, and statewide levels before a decision is made.
“Emphasis at each level is placed on projects and activities that address hazards that reduce potential risk from wildfire in and near communities,” he said via email.
Henning said the initiatives the agency chose not to fund were redundant or overpriced. But representatives of the organizations that sought the money disagreed, arguing the grants could have helped prevent homes from burning and mitigated the extent of the damage.
In August, Cal Fire declined to award nearly $3 million for seven communities in the Santa Monica Mountains, including Big Rock in eastern Malibu and Topanga Canyon, both of which have been heavily affected by the Palisades fire. The funds would have gone toward “a trailblazing partnership which will help bridge the gap between professional first response agencies and local communities during major disaster events,” according to state records. The goal was to create “more wildfire and risk adapted communities.”
Brent Woodworth, chairman and chief executive of the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation, the nonprofit that made the grant request, said it had planned to use the money to conduct what’s known as home ignition zone assessments. The detailed assessments, which the organization offers for free, identify specific steps homeowners can take to reduce the risks of a destructive fire.
The foundation, he said, previously conducted hundreds of the surveys using about $133,000 it received via a prior round of Cal Fire grant funding.
“The value of the ignition home surveys is incredible because even in this particular case we are aware of a number of homes that not only did we survey, but the homeowners actually did the mitigation and their homes survived this fire, the Palisades fire,” Woodworth said.
Coverage of the fires ravaging Altadena, Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Pasadena, including stories about the devastation, issues firefighters faced and the weather.
Henning said Cal Fire was concerned about “the high cost” of the foundation’s proposal.
Hardening homes is the single most effective tool residents and communities have to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in urban and urban-adjacent areas such as those that have burned in the Palisades fire, said Helen Poulos, a professor of environmental and earth sciences at Wesleyan University who was not involved in the Cal Fire grant decisions.
Assessments like the type Woodworth’s group offers are key, she said, because homeowners who follow the recommendations can help limit the spread of fires in more populous areas.
“It’s very simple. When we talk about that wildland urban interface, cutting funding means you have more risk to communities,” said Poulos, who grew up in Southern California, got her bachelor’s degree at Pepperdine University in Malibu and has researched wildfires for decades.
“It’s a lot easier to maintain the status quo than to create these fire-climate-resilient communities,” she added. “Not doing something is a management decision.”
Some L.A.-area projects received only partial funding from Cal Fire. In August, the agency awarded about half of a more than $1.6-million grant requested by the Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Council for fire prevention efforts in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and other communities in the area.
Pauline Allen, executive director of the organization, said the money would have gone toward implementing wildfire resiliency plans and conducting home ignition zone assessments.
She said officials told her “the overall budget for education and prevention grants was less than anticipated,” with “prevention education specifically” taking a cut.
It’s now about half a year later and the organization is still waiting for the grant funds to start flowing.
Owners of homes in Pacific Palisades say they are frustrated that they have been barred from returning to fetch belongings amid reports of looting and concerns about additional fires that threaten the remaining properties left standing.
“I would love for money to come faster,” Allen said. “It’s a very slow process.”
Henning said Cal Fire declined to grant some of the funding the council requested because the initial proposal “included ‘home hardening’ — which is funded by an alternate grant program.”
Meanwhile, also in August, Cal Fire awarded the Shasta Valley Resource Conservation District $86,000 more than the $1.7 million it had requested to “mechanically remove trees” on 682 acres outside the city of Yreka. Home to fewer than 8,000 people near Mt. Shasta, the surrounding area has seen large fires in recent years.
As part of the same grant program, the state agency in August awarded nearly $300,000 more than the $1.78 million Mariposa County — which has a population of around 20,000 — requested to manage vegetation along county-maintained roadways.
Cal Fire in August also awarded $538,000 — nearly $47,000 more than the Kern Fire Safe Council had asked for — for a project to grade dirt roads and perform other work in Hart Flat, a tiny rural community in Kern County.
The prior fiscal year, the state declined to provide L.A. County $1.5 million to remove insect-infested trees “that become fire hazards” in vast swaths of the county, including the Santa Monica Mountains. Henning said the area where the proposed work was to be done “was determined to already be an active treatment area through another awarded grant.”
That same fiscal year, Cal Fire awarded more than $527,000 “to graze goats” at UC Santa Cruz “in very steep areas and to mow other areas annually.”
Cal Fire did fund at least one project in past years aimed at boosting wildfire prevention in areas that just burned in the Palisades fire, nearly $390,000 in 2021 “to improve homeowner management of their defensible space” on properties near the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
But the state has often bankrolled fire prevention efforts in lower-risk areas than Pacific Palisades.
Cal Fire announced in August it was awarding the city of Escondido nearly a quarter of a million dollars to distribute fire prevention mailers to 20,200 parcels in state-designated “High Fire Severity Zones.”
That was the same month Allen’s Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Council was awarded only about half of the more than $1.6 million it had requested to serve an area it described in its grant application as being nearly 98% within a “Very High Fire Severity Zone.”
Asked if promptly receiving the full amount could have led to fewer homes burning in the Palisades fire, Allen replied: “It’s tough to say could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. But I think there was a lot of risk in the Santa Monica Mountains.”
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