AB 926

Bill Subjects

Abstract

Existing law requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a local assistance grant program for fire prevention activities, as defined, in the state. Existing law requires the department to prioritize, to the extent feasible, projects that are multiyear efforts. Existing law authorizes the department to consider the fire risk of an area, among other things, when awarding local assistance grants. This bill would expand the definition of "fire prevention activities" to include the removal of hazardous dead trees, creation of fuel breaks and community defensible spaces, and creation of ingress and egress corridors. The bill would also require the department to prioritize projects that have a completed, or nearly completed, environmental review document, as provided. The bill would authorize the department to consider and evaluate the wildfire risk within the proposed project area, as well as the socioeconomic characteristics of communities that the various education and mitigation projects are intended to protect, when awarding local assistance grants. Existing law requires the department to provide a report to the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature on or before July 1, 2022, that includes a summary of specified findings relating to fire prevention activities and the local assistance grant program. This bill would also require the report to include, but not be limited to, the total amount of acreage treated by an awarded grant recipient, whether the project was awarded funding for vegetation management activities, the number of communities protected by an awarded project, and the total number of population receiving a benefit of the project.