CA Prepares for Early Wildfire Season Amidst Slashing of US Forest Service

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California’s record-setting heatwave in March caused snow to melt and vegetation to dry out earlier than normal this year. Those conditions could provide lots of fuel for wildfires and hasten the start of fire season. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has gutted the U.S. Forest Service, which manages close to 60 percent of our state’s forest areas, and plans to close six research centers in California. We’ll dig into how those factors could influence wildfires this year and how you can prepare. Guests: Craig Clements, professor of meteorology, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University Marianne Lavelle, Washington, D.C. bureau chief, Inside Climate News Adrienne Freeman, assistant director for communications for fire and aviation management, US. Forest Service Brent Pascua, battalion chief, Cal Fire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:34.5	That's g-e-ne.com.
0:38.0	From K-Q-E-D.
0:40.6	Welcome to Forum.
0:42.1	I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:43.6	We've had some relatively calm years on the wildfire score here in Northern California.
0:49.4	While Los Angeles had the terrible fires last year, the raw number of acres burned was quite small compared
0:56.0	to 2020 and 2021.
0:59.0	Given the strange weather conditions so far this year, we're going to dig into the wildfire
1:04.0	forecast with some experts, but first we're going to talk about the U.S. Forest Service,
1:08.0	which the Trump administration is subjecting to a major overhaul,
1:12.2	including closing some research centers here in California and cutting deep into the staffing of the agency.
1:19.0	Up first, we're joined by Marianne Lavelle, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief with Inside Climate News.
1:24.9	Welcome.
1:26.1	Oh, glad to be here.
	...

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