Trump wants to cut payments to California for fighting wildfires
LOS ANGELES — The relationship between President Donald Trump and California has long been fraught, but in the aftermath of the state’s deadliest wildfire season, the acrimony is burning hotter than ever.
In November, as crews battled the Camp and Woolsey fires, Trump blamed the state for “gross mismanagement of the forests” and delivered this ultimatum: “Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”
Then, while visiting the devastated town of Paradise later that month, Trump suggested California could eliminate the threat of wildfire by “raking.”
Now, the Trump administration has taken matters a step further.
As California prepares for what some officials fear will be another devastating fire season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service are withholding reimbursements that state fire agencies say are owed for battling wildfires on federal lands last year.
Instead of fulfilling California’s full $72 million reimbursement request, the Forest Service conducted an audit of the California Fire Assistance Agreement and now accuses the state of overbilling.
The Forest Service has demanded that the state provide proof of its “actual expenses.”
With the start of the traditional fire season just weeks away, California officials worry that the audit is a precursor to the Trump administration cutting back on fire assistance.
In a May 14 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Sen. Dianne Feinstein implored them to delay any actions that would reduce reimbursement rates.
“As you know, around 60% of forested land in California is owned by the federal government,” Feinstein wrote. “Wildfires don’t stop at jurisdictional boundaries, so a unified federalstate approach is the only way to properly protect lives and property.”
The dispute marks a sudden change in a decadeslong partnership between federal and local authorities.
Since 1961, the Forest Service has reimbursed the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, for the costs of local, state and volunteer firefighters who help battle blazes on federal lands.
Under the current assistance agreement, which runs from 2015 to 2020, the state calculates those costs by averaging the salaries, benefits and other indirect expenses tied to the work of firefighters, according to Cal OES Fire Chief Brian Marshall.
For the 2018 fire season, which killed at least 100 people, Cal OES calculated total reimbursements of $72 million. That estimate included the work of some of the 5,600 firefighters who battled the Camp fire as it spread into Plumas National Forest in November, and 3,400 firefighters who battled the Carr fire in ShastaTrinity National Forest in July.
The Forest Service said in a statement that it decided to audit the agreement after receiving a letter from Cal OES Director Mark Ghilarducci. That letter, which was sent in July 2017, chastised the agency for not reimbursing the state in a timely manner.
“The USFS has blatantly ignored its financial responsibility to the men and women of California who have risked their lives fighting fires to protect federal land,” Ghilarducci wrote.