Newsom EO declares a state of emergency related to fire and fuels and suspends aspects of laws including but not limited to CEQA and the Coastal Act for specific types of fuel reduction projects initiated in 2025. Individual projects must be approved by Sec of CNRA and/or CalEPA and will be listed on a website.

Click here to read the Proclamation of a State of Emergency

“4. Critical fuels reduction projects eligible for suspension of statutes, rules, regulations, and requirements specified in Paragraph 2, shall include as a primary objective at least one of the following activities:

1. Removal of hazardous, dead, and/or dying trees;
2. Removal of vegetation for the creation of strategic fuel breaks as identified by approved fire prevention plans, including without limitation CAL FIRE Unit Fire Plans or Community Wildfire Preparedness Plans;
3. Removal of vegetation for community defensible space;
4. Removal of vegetation along roadways, highways, and freeways for the creation of safer ingress and egress routes for the public and responders and to reduce roadside ignitions;
5. Removal of vegetation using cultural traditional ecological knowledge for cultural burning and/or prescribed fire treatments for fuels reduction; or
6. Maintenance of previously-established fuel breaks or fuels modification projects.

There is a new State Environmental Protection Plan that summarizes the requirements for projects executed under this emergency authority. See link below for a copy – it covers issues like debris cleanup as well as vegetation management.

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:54272a6b-f69c-44fc-803a-d09e8397dc8a

The Newsom EO also directs the Board of Forestry to work on updating the CalVTP to improve efficiency and utilization. And it directs the Secretaries of CNRA and CalEPA to “provide, within 60 days, their consolidated recommendations for increasing the pace and scale of beneficial fire in California.  These may include recommendations to ensure more consistency among local air pollution control districts and increasing allowable burn days.”