Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Program.

Senator Cortese, along with coauthors Becker, Richardson, Rubio, and Stern, frames wildfire risk as a statewide policy focus by authorizing a new program to fund and guide the development of a publicly accessible wildfire catastrophe model through a university-led research and education center, with the program operative only upon legislative appropriation and supported by a dedicated account within the Insurance Fund.

The authors’ stated purpose is to fund one or more universities to create a research and educational center responsible for developing, demonstrating, and deploying a public wildfire catastrophe model that provides wildfire safety benefits to California communities and aids alignment of federal, state, and local wildfire risk reduction efforts. Eligible grant projects include (1) developing the model to inform emergency planning, risk mitigation, actuarial analyses, training, and insurance regulation and oversight, and (2) outreach initiatives to educate potential users of the model. A “public wildfire catastrophe model” is defined as a computerized process that uses the best available science to simulate potential property damage from major wildfires and has readily accessible documentation and programs, including underlying data and algorithms, for public use.

Administration and grant standards are assigned to the Department of Insurance, which must administer the program and award grants on a competitive basis. The department is required to establish minimum standards, funding schedules, and procedures, including: performance criteria and metrics; alignment with applicable insurance laws and regulations (notably referenced California Code of Regulations provisions); consideration of research and development of modeling techniques and actuarial analyses related to wildfire risk mitigation at multiple scales; promotion of publicly accessible information to support mitigation planning; maximum feasible leveraging of federal or private funding; coordination with federal/private efforts at the community scale; alignment with local and state hazard mitigation plans and after-action reports; and consideration of input from a named advisory group on the model strategy.

Grant evaluations prioritize proposals that (a) benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable communities where insurance access is challenged by wildfire risk, (b) assist state and local governments in protecting communities and promoting equitable recovery, (c) provide educational benefits for California students and encourage collaboration among universities, (d) enable scenario analysis for risk reduction, (e) provide publicly accessible information for property- and community-level risk assessments, (f) reflect environmental factors that affect risk, and (g) improve consumer information and transparency about catastrophe modeling. The department must also craft a framework and multiyear plan for developing, demonstrating, and deploying the model, to be published on its website upon completion.

A dedicated Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Account is created within the Insurance Fund to finance the program, with expenditures contingent on appropriation. The department must publish milestones identifying steps toward completing the model after the first grant round and provide recommendations for future budget allocations to specified legislative and executive bodies by a stated date. The article preserves the California Insurance Code’s rate-regulation authority and is operative only upon appropriation, with no sunset provision specified.

In the broader governance context, the bill calls for coordination with federal and private wildfire safety efforts, alignment with hazard mitigation priorities, and public access to model documentation and data. It envisions a multi‑year planning and reporting framework, with ongoing oversight by legislative committees and the Governor. The proposal emphasizes equity, educational advancement, and public-facing risk information, while leaving data governance specifics and enforcement mechanisms to rulemaking and existing statutory authorities.