Office of Emergency Services: comprehensive wildfire mitigation program.

Committee on Emergency Management, guided by Assembly Members Ransom, Hadwick, Bains, Calderon, and DeMaio, advances a framework to formalize a joint powers arrangement between the Office of Emergency Services and the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for a comprehensive wildfire mitigation program, with the Office of the State Fire Marshal administering the program and the Department of Insurance joining the governing board as an ex officio nonvoting member by mid-2026.

The bill requires the joint powers agreement to pursue two core objectives: encouraging cost-effective structure hardening and retrofitting to create fire-resistant homes, businesses, and public buildings, and facilitating vegetation management, defensible space creation and maintenance, and other fuel modification activities that yield neighborhood or community-wide wildfire benefits. It specifies that Cal Fire shall delegate its duties and responsibilities for the program to the OSFM, consolidating day-to-day administration under that office. By July 1, 2026, the Department of Insurance would join the California Wildfire Mitigation Program Board as an ex officio nonvoting member.

Governance and implementation hinge on the Joint Exercise of Powers Act to establish the California Wildfire Mitigation Program Board created by the joint powers agreement; the bill does not specify the board’s full composition or voting rules beyond DOI’s ex officio nonvoting status. It does not create new appropriations within the text, and it does not alter the existing eligibility criteria for financial assistance under the program. The existing operative framework notes the program’s baseline period through July 1, 2029, and the bill’s provisions would be implemented consistent with that framework, subject to the JPA and related administrative instruments.

In context, the measure expands governance participation by adding the DOI to the program’s board and clarifies administrative responsibility by designating the OSFM as the administrator for Cal Fire’s duties, while remaining within the Joint Exercise of Powers Act framework. The changes are oriented toward interagency coordination around wildfire mitigation activities, with the board’s deliberations anticipated to involve interagency and local stakeholders as defined by the forthcoming joint powers agreement.