California Gov. Gavin Newsom toured the area burned by the Camp Fire on Thursday, announcing a state contribution of $31.3 million to replace lost property tax revenues for seven California counties.
Newsom says it is the first time the state has backfilled such a loss after a disaster.
Specifically, $11.5 million would go to Butte, Lake, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Shasta, and Siskiyou counties as a result of 2018 fires.
The property tax legislation was one of two announcements by the governor, who also said $50 million in funds will be allocated to support emergency planning and emergency preparedness.
A combined $16.1 million would be paid next fiscal year and the year after to Butte County, and $3.6 million would go to Lake County this fiscal year and the next two years for losses from wildfires in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
The governor also made a push for one item in his proposed budget: $146 million to cover the local costs for debris removal and cleanup of the Camp Fire burn site.
He spoke with students and residents at a Pine Ridge Elementary School in Magalia, which is surrounded by scorched trees. Yet the Camp Fire missed the school as it rolled through Butte County in November.
Several audience members told Newsom how their lives had changed from having the comforts of home to living in a travel trailer with siblings and pets.
“Just after I got my own bedroom, the fire happened,” Brooklyn Banks told the governor.
During a question-and-answer session, Newsom was asked about evacuated children who are still in Chico, the largest city near Paradise. One parent claimed some are not yet attending school.
“You’re just re-enforcing why I’m glad we came here today, to hear that directly from you, that expression of concern that we will take back and consider more substantively,’ Newsom answered. “We are providing broad strokes support, but there are specific areas that we need to attend to and this is an example. Thank you.”
Other requests from teachers and parents included more counselors for the Butte County school district and simple classroom items like headphones and erasers.
The state expects an addition payout of $19 million in lost property tax revenues will be distributed to school districts because of the November 2018 wildfires.
The Camp Fire, which killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes, was the most deadly and destructive in state history.
Katrina Hornbuckle attended the event and said she was happy to see the governor return to her community for a third time. “I’m encouraged that we’re on the same page. Hopefully everything’s going to go back to normal,” she said.
Earlier on Thursday, fire marshals from Northern California toured many of the burn sites and buildings that survived on November 8.
Chico Fire Marshall Tony Lindsey held the same position in Paradise until recently. He urged his colleagues to consider the expansion of evacuation routes and creation of more open areas for people to get away without clogging the roads in case of a similar “historic” fire.
“This was not typical embers floating through the air and getting caught up in the waves of [homes],” he recalled. “These were basketball-sized flying through the sky and very wind-driven.”
Raul Gonzalez is the Fire Prevention Specialist with Chico Fire. He said he would not have been surprised if the death toll had reached 1,000. It currently sits at 85. He stressed smarter neighborhood construction.
“The hope is that with any new development, new construction, there’s a thought that goes into this so that we start planning our future communities with fire risk in mind,” he said.
Gonzalez also urged his colleagues to question whether their communities would be able to care for an influx of 4,000 evacuees after an emergency.
He cited Grass Valley and Auburn as two potential future sites for devastating fires like the Camp Fire. “There are communities like Paradise that are definitely in the middle high-severity zones and then there’s outlying communities like Chico, Folsom, Rocklin, Roseville, Lincoln that would be receiving the secondary blast of an incident, the crush of the people landing in their communities overnight,” Gonzalez said.
Bryan Jonson, a Fire Marshal for the City of West Sacramento, talked about the different types and ages of buildings that burned or didn’t. “It’s such a large scale and devastating fire there are so many learning experiences from this,” he said.
Firefighters and other first responders hope to gain more information when an after-incident report is released. Cal Fire says it does not have a date set for its report.
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