CDFW Initiates Massive Wildfire Protection Efforts The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has undertaken the largest wildfire protection and resiliency effort in its history, working to safeguard nearly all of its wildlife areas, ecological reserves and the surrounding communities from wildfire ahead of peak wildfire season this summer and fall. Wildfire resiliency work is underway at dozens of CDFW-owned properties statewide. These efforts include creating fire breaks, removing brush and other wildfire fuel, thinning overgrown vegetation, expanding livestock grazing and conducting controlled burns when conditions safely permit. The unprecedented undertaking is the result of SB 85, the “Wildfire Forest and Resilience Early Action Package,” state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in April that authorized $536 million in wildfire protection and resiliency spending in the current fiscal year. CDFW is budgeted to receive $15 million of those funds to better protect its lands, which total about 1 million acres. Additional wildfire funding is expected in the 2021-22 state budget.