(a)The Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Program is hereby established.
(b)The purpose of the program is to provide funding to one or more universities for the purpose of creating a research and educational center responsible for developing, demonstrating, and deploying a public wildfire catastrophe model that provides significant wildfire safety benefits to California communities and assists alignment of federal, state, and local wildfire risk reduction efforts.
(c)Projects eligible for a grant under this article include either of the following:
(1)The development of a public wildfire catastrophe model that
can provide insight for state and local emergency planners, aid wildfire safety efforts that protect lives and property, increase research and development on wildfire risk mitigation strategies, inform actuarial analyses, create training opportunities for students and professionals, and support effective insurance regulation and financial oversight of insurance, risk assessments, and insurance company solvency risks and risk management.
(2)The development of outreach initiatives to identify and educate potential users of a public wildfire catastrophe model, including, but not limited to, state and local emergency planners, wildfire safety groups, agricultural and business groups, research organizations, and educators.
(d)For the purposes of this article, a “public
wildfire catastrophe model” means a computerized process that uses the best available science to simulate potential property damage caused by major wildfires and has readily accessible documentation and programs, including, but not limited to, underlying data and algorithms, for use by public agencies, organizations, and individuals.