It's certainly not good news for people who live in rural areas. Risk is up, costs are up, but resources are down.
The state board of equalization is expecting opposition to it, but it's in the process of sending out a bill to residents in rural areas anyway.
It's called a fire prevention fee, approved by the state legislature last year, and will cost over 41,000 valley residents $115 to $150.
The Board of Equalization says no new firefighters or equipment will be added.
George Runner, CA Board. of Equalization: "So there's no new programs. There's no additional services that'll be a part of this fee. It's just basically back-filling CAL FIRE for what they were already doing in regards to fire prevention."
But CAL FIRE says it needs the fee just to maintain prevention, especially with wildfire risks increasing.
So far this year, from January 1st to July 14th, there have been 3,126 fires totaling 23,268 acres.
A UC Merced study shows the chances of losing your home to a wildfire will double over the next 40 years... thanks to climate change, population growth, and land-use decisions.
Compile that with dry conditions across the state, and a reduction 1500 of inmate firefighters, thanks to the state's realignment plan.
Daniel Berlant, CAL FIRE: "The crews do a lot of work every single day, clearing brush, doing defensible space projects, fuel reduction projects, specific projects that help us in fire prevention."
CAL FIRE says this fire prevention fee will be sent to about 800,000 homes, covering 31 million acres statewide.
2.7 million of that is in the central valley, impacting over 41,000 homes
Why else does CAL FIRE need the fee?
The state spends an average of $100 million every five years fighting fires.
But costs skyrocketed in 2003 to $974 million, and in 2007 to $253 million.
Once rural homeowners get their fire prevention bill, the state Board of Equalization says they'll have 30 days to pay it off.
The state Board of Equalization will be sending out the fire prevention bill in the next couple of weeks, but officials say residents need to educate themselves about it.
For more information on the bill, just click on News Links.
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