Climate change is intensifying wildfire risk across California — threatening natural lands, communities, and the agricultural and municipal landscapes in between.
Over 100 million acres of U.S. land need active management to reduce wildfire severity, yet these critical treatments are happening at a rate of only about 3 million acres per year. An improved approach to landscape-level management is urgently needed.
The Building Resilience to Wildfires project builds on a multi-year, cross-disciplinary effort combining environmental sensing, data science, atmospheric and ecological modeling, and experimental prescribed burns. Funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, it aims to forecast climate conditions and inform risk assessments before the next major wildfire. Building on this research, The 2035 Initiative developed the following policy recommendations and communications to carry these findings to decision-makers.