Last week, Governor Gavin Newson met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris along with six other Western governors to discuss efforts to further prevent 2021 wildfires. It is President Biden’s second meeting this summer with Western governors on wildfires, last speaking with the group on June 30th when he announced plans to raise pay for U.S. Forest Service firefighters. During this latest meeting, Governor Newsom criticized the impact that fires from federally controlled land were having on California, expressing that “this was a federal fire and they waited and they saw as the fire took off because they didn't put enough initial assets." At the meeting’s conclusion, President Biden committed to reaching out to the U.S. Department of Defense about allowing California to continue to access the Pentagon’s sensitive military satellite information, as part of a program to help spot and track wildfires, beyond its current year-to-year requests.
