Storm-ravaged Californians are still digging out from historic levels of snowfall and girdling for more heavy rain this week. But officials of the Biden administration are

already

looking ahead to a wildfire season that could cause more devastation once the state dries out.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday announced $197 million in new federal grants to help protect high-risk communities from wildfires

as her native California prepares for fire season as temperatures warm in the coming months

.

More than 100 communities across 22 states and seven tribes will receive additional funding

increased

pay for forest firefighters

within the next two years

and provide housing for firefighters as part of the Biden administration’s wildfire protection grant program.

“We used to talk about wildfire season. Now wildfire season is year-round,” Harris said during a press interview with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu. “We know the best time to fight a fire is before it starts.”

Twenty-nine of the grants will go to California communities and organizations.

Kern County will receive $2.2 million to train firefighters to perform controlled burns and educate homeowners on how to reduce wildfire risk, including cleaning rain gutters of dry branches and leaves, which can be combustibles , and covering vents to block flying embers.

The Butte County Fire Department receives $1.5 million to purchase excavators for an 8,000-acre hazardous fuel reduction project and $4.9 million for defensible space inspections, which encourage homeowners to

or manage

vegetation around their homes to reduce the likelihood of wildfires setting them on fire.

Tuolumne County will receive $10 million to inspect 1,290 homes, clear shrubbery along about 23 miles of road, and promote wildfire management education.

The grants will also boost funding from the US Forest Service and the Department of the Interior for prescribed burning, brush clearing and other wildfire prevention tactics.

Last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Biden’s signature climate and social spending package allocated $7 billion in funding for government agencies involved in wildfire management. The latest funding is a first round and more money will be made available to other communities affected by wildfires,

Wilsack said

.

But

California’s wet season isn’t over yet. Central and southern California residents brace for more rainfall after 11 atmospheric river storms dumped rain and snow across the state

this winter.

The storm system

S

what pull

S

moisture from the tropical Pacific Ocean, caused massive flooding and levee breaches.

While the torrential rain and snow have brought some relief to the drought-stricken state,

the precipitation it

According to Daniel Swain, climate scientist at

the University of California Los Angeles UCLA

.

He pointed to the last wettest winter on record

in 2016 and 2017

in parts of Northern California. A long, hot summer followed the winter of 2016-2017,

triggering eventually led to

the destructive firestorm in Northern California in October 2017,

which

included

edit

the Tubbs fire that destroyed Santa Rosa. The severity of this year’s fire season will depend on how quickly the snowpack melts and whether temperatures warm up this spring and summer.

according to

Swain said.

“Just because we’re having a very wet winter doesn’t mean it’s clearly a mild fire season everywhere,”

he added.

“But it does change the dynamic.”

California’s wildfires have increased both in size and intensity over the past two decades, a pattern that has left little time for recovery between fires. Harris recalled visiting communities ravaged by the 2017 Tubbs fire, the 2018 Camp fire, and the 2020 Creek fire.

“I’ve seen entire neighborhoods burn to the ground. I’ve been in neighborhoods where the only thing left standing [were] the chimneys, which almost looked like tombstones,” she said.

So on Monday

The announcement came as

the United Nations released a gloomy report calling on wealthy nations, including the US, to do just that

achieve accelerate their goals for

net zero emissions

Unpleasant

2040, ten years earlier than developing countries. T

he report found t

The world is likely to exceed its climate goal of limiting warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial times by the 2030s, a threshold that would spell catastrophic climate catastrophe

according to the report.

“The assessment is appalling,” Harris said of the UN report. “Our future is not yet written and the solutions are at hand. So let that be an alarm that lets us know that we have to hurry and that we can now actually influence how this all plays out.”