Newsom Opens COP31 Day at Türkiye's International Forestry Training Centre for a Global Wildfire Exchange
California Governor Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom opened their first day at COP31 on November 12 at Türkiye's International Forestry Training Centre in Antalya, joining the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Under2 Coalition and governors and regional leaders from around the world for a high-level exchange on wildfire resilience. They toured the centre's firefighting simulators and training grounds and met trainee firefighters. The Governor's Office said California, home to the world's largest aerial firefighting fleet and pioneering wildfire detection and response technologies, came to share what is working and to learn from others facing the same threats.
Operated by Türkiye's General Directorate of Forestry since 2011, the centre is a regional hub that trains forestry professionals and firefighters in wildfire prevention, suppression and post-fire restoration, and is expanding its international training programs with FAO support. Its 50-hectare campus includes training rooms, firefighting and flight simulators and advanced driving courses for large fire trucks, with simulators that let incident commanders practise fighting fires across shifting weather, terrain and vegetation. Newsom and the First Partner toured the centre with Türkiye's Director General of Forestry, Bekir Karacabey, and met about three dozen trainee firefighters.
Newsom said that every fire season, communities in California and Türkiye are asked to do the impossible, and that what he saw at the centre, from the training and technology to the courage of the young firefighters, is how that challenge is met, adding that no state or nation can face this fight alone. First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said wildfire does not stop at borders and neither does the courage of the people who fight it, and that learning from one another makes every community safer. Newsom recalled the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise. The Governor's Office said Türkiye fought large-scale wildfires this summer that burned nearly 20,000 hectares over a few days in July and September alone, and that about 15 million hectares of the country's forested land remain under threat.
Since 2019, the Newsom administration and the Legislature have invested more than $5 billion in wildfire and forest resilience, according to the Governor's Office. California is the first state to own and operate C-130H airtankers, with four in service and seven planned. The first-in-the-nation Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System (FIRIS) has flown more than 2,000 missions since 2019, mapping fires within minutes of ignition. The first three FireSat wildfire detection satellites, a CAL FIRE partnership with the Earth Fire Alliance, launched in June. Over the past five years CAL FIRE has added an average of 1,800 full-time and 600 seasonal positions each year, and the state is testing super intelligence (SI)-guided drones to support firefighting in low visibility when crewed aircraft cannot fly.
California co-founded the Under2 Coalition in 2015 to bring states and regions together on climate action. COP31 runs November 9 to 20 in Antalya, hosted by Türkiye with Australia leading the negotiations, and this year's focus is turning commitments into concrete, measurable results. The Governor's Office said that with the Trump administration absent from the summit, California is continuing to engage with international partners on climate resilience. (Source: Office of the Governor of California)
Source: Office of the Governor of California
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州州长 Gavin Newsom 在土耳其 Antalya 的国际林业培训中心查看消防装备，与受训消防员交流。加州州长办公室官方照片。 / Photo: California Governor Gavin Newsom views firefighting equipment and meets trainee firefighters at Türkiye's International Forestry Training Centre in Antalya. Official photo by the Office of the Governor of California.
