Even as most of the state is preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, California is poised to enter another danger zone — wildfire season.
The governor devoted most of his Wednesday briefing, delivered from a fire station in El Dorado County, to addressing the state's efforts to ramp up for fire season, pointing out that there have been 1,135 wildfires this year so far — a 60% increase over the same period last year.
Newsom said he is proposing a budget boost of $127 million for the state's Office of Emergency Services (OES), with $50 million in funding to assist counties in handling expected public safety power shutoffs, and to hire 600 additional personnel to help fight fires.
Also during Wednesday's briefing, OES Director Mark Ghilarducci laid out options for conducting wildfire evacuations while maintaining quarantine procedures under COVID-19. These include creating separate evacuation centers, and potentially using hotel rooms to house COVID-positive evacuees.
"We're obviously going to be working through these [issues] in real time, and we're going to be assessing each individual case as they're presented to us," he added.