Gov. Newsom Urged Against Logging as Wildfire Safety Measure

“Cutting down California’s forests doesn’t make us safer and can actually increase wildfire risk,” said Shaye Wolf, Ph.D., climate science director at the Center. “To truly address the heightened wildfire safety risk, the governor should invest in retrofitting homes and improve warning systems and evacuation planning. Using the catastrophe in L.A. as an excuse for pro-logging measures to appease the Trump administration is a grave disservice to Californians.”

The wildfires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades spread rapidly under intense winds in urban and shrubland areas far from forests. The fires were made more destructive by extreme fire weather intensified by climate change. Allowing logging without considering the potential for environmental harm would create open, hotter, drier, windier conditions that can make fires burn hotter and faster.

While Tribal cultural burning and prescribed fire without prior logging play important roles in fire management, those practices can be supported without giving up environmental review.

“To curb wildfire safety risks effectively, we need to allocate resources equitably for home hardening, steer new development away from wildfire-prone areas, and take stronger climate action,” Wolf said.


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.


https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/gov-newsom-urged-against-logging-as-wildfire-safety-measure-2025-03-13/