Evidence shows that Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Democratic allies did move to accelerate the 2021 recall timeline, and that one stated strategic reason for an earlier, summertime election was to avoid the political fallout from late‑season wildfires.

Key points:

• Before Democrats changed the law, the recall calendar pointed to a late October or early November 2021 election—i.e., during the traditional peak of California’s wildfire season.(everything.explained.today)
• On June 28, 2021, Newsom signed SB 152, which removed a 30‑day budget‑review step and let the lieutenant governor call the recall much earlier, as soon as August 2021, while appropriating $250 million to run it.(everything.explained.today) Democratic leaders explicitly said this funding would “allow for an earlier recall election.”(calmatters.org) This is exactly the kind of procedural change needed to “accelerate” the recall.
• After signatures were certified on July 1, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis set the election for September 14, 2021, which NPR and others noted was “much earlier than originally planned” (previous expectations were for November).(nprillinois.org) So the recall was pulled forward on the calendar.
• Analyses of the recall law changes note that a late‑August or early‑September election would help Newsom by avoiding political fallout over fires, virus variants, or school reopenings, compared with a late‑October/November date; this is described as the strategic rationale advanced by Democratic state senator Steve Glazer when he pushed for an earlier election.(everything.explained.today) That explicitly includes wildfires as a key concern.
• California’s wildfire season is generally understood to peak in the hot, dry months of August–October, and in 2021 the largest and most destructive fires (e.g., the Dixie Fire, burning July–October, and other major fires continuing through October) were indeed intense well after mid‑September.(en.wikipedia.org) Moving the recall from a likely late‑October/November date to mid‑September therefore shifted it earlier relative to the late‑season peak.

Nuance: The September 14 election still occurred during an active fire season (the Dixie Fire was already burning), and public reporting highlights multiple motives for the accelerated date—riding Newsom’s improving approval ratings and avoiding problems not only with wildfires but also COVID variants and school reopening.(nprillinois.org) However, the core of Sacks’s prediction—that Newsom and his allies would work to accelerate the recall so it occurred earlier in the fire season, partly out of concern about wildfire politics—matches what actually happened.

Because the legislative and scheduling moves clearly did accelerate the recall and contemporary analyses explicitly cite avoiding wildfire‑related fallout as one rationale, the prediction is best classified as right, even though fire season was not the only factor and the election did not precede all major 2021 fires.