Photo Credit: Harold Dichoso
CA FWD’s Wildfire Policy Forum, held on May 29, 2025, at the UC Student and Policy Center in Sacramento, brought together state leaders across the executive branch, legislature, academia, and non-profit organizations, to confront one of the state’s most urgent challenges: the growing frequency, severity, and cost of wildfires across the state. Against the backdrop of the 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles and a volatile insurance market, the Forum offered a timely platform to examine how California can better manage wildfire risk, protect its fiscal health, and support long-term community resilience. Speakers explored how disasters are straining public budgets and threatening local economies, underscoring the need to embed resilience into core fiscal strategies and unlock sustained funding for risk reduction investments. Senator Josh Becker joined the event to emphasize the need for coordinated, cross-sector action on wildfire mitigation and how to harness economic opportunity through wildfire risk mitigation.
The Forum also turned to a critical question: how can we support communities not just to rebuild, but to meaningfully reduce future climate risk by rebuilding smarter? Panelists explored how the state can better align with local and regional governments to enable fire-adapted communities, and emphasized that wildfire risk reduction can’t rely on a one-size-fits-all approach—strategies must be locally driven, grounded in community context, supported by accessible data, and aligned with broader goals.
In a keynote conversation, author Mark Arax offered a powerful reflection on California’s relationship with fire and land, urging attendees to consider the cultural and historical dynamics that shape our response to the crisis. The event’s insights and recommendations will help inform California Forward’s ongoing work connecting subject matter experts across wildfire, land use, finance, insurance, and economic development with policymakers to shape strategies that address the growing risks climate change poses to California’s regions and economies. The Forum was made possible with generous support from the Resources Legacy Fund and was informed by the expertise and insights of CA FWD’s Wildfire Policy Expert Workgroup. A recording of the event is now available on CA FWD’s YouTube channel.
