Wildfire safety: The California Wildfire Mitigation Strategic Planning Act.

Existing law establishes the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and establishes the Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation within the office. Existing law makes the deputy director responsible for fire preparedness and mitigation missions of the department, as provided. This bill would require the deputy director, on or before January 1, 2026, and every 3 years thereafter, to prepare a Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework sufficient to quantitatively evaluate wildfire risk mitigation actions, as provided. The bill would require the framework to allow for geospatial evaluation and comparison of wildfire risk mitigation actions, as defined, sufficient to direct coordinated mitigation efforts and long-term collaborative mitigation planning. The bill would require the deputy director to make the framework available as a planning tool to specified entities and to, each year the framework is completed, submit a copy of the framework to the Legislature, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, and the Public Utilities Commission for review and consideration. This bill would authorize the deputy director to contract with a private consultant or a public university with special expertise in quantitative assessment of wildfire risk and risk mitigation to conduct quantitative assessment of wildfire and community risk modeling and for preparation of reports to accomplish the purposes of this act.