Gov. Newsom Sends Plan to Trump to Prevent Fires on Federal Forestland in California

On July 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan to help “make America rake again,” a model executive order on how to manage the forestland in California that is owned by the federal government. This includes 57% of the state’s forestland, as opposed to the 3% owned by the state.

Essentially, Newsom is asking the White House to match the efforts of the state and local authorities to fight and prevent wildfires. In his model executive order, Newsom pointed out that California has provided more than $4 billion for wildfire protection and forest resilience in 2024-25, while the federal government has only provided $7 billion for fiscal year 2024 to manage wildfires on all 238 million acres of federal lands nationwide.

This comes on the heels of Newsom asking the Trump administration to return troops to firefighting duties — instead of invading Los Angeles. California National Guard’s firefighting crews, known as Task Force Rattlesnake, are operating at 40% capacity. This is due to Trump’s deployment of eight out of 14 of these teams are deployed in LA instead.

The title “make America rake again” is a cheeky reference to Trump’s demand that California rake its fires in 2020.

Whether or not Trump will listen remains to be seen. His relationship with Newsom is strained, as Trump called for Newsom’s arrest in June, and Newsom has been very critical of Trump’s use of the military as a political weapon against immigrants in his state.