Local wildfire resiliency efforts have already been stymied by federal grant freezes and budget cuts, with some fearing badly needed fuels reductions efforts in vulnerable communities that had been funded and in line to be complete by the onset of severe fire season will not get done.
Not yet two months into the second presidency of Donald J. Trump, the North Coast continues to ascertain the on-the-ground impacts of a flurry of executive orders and Department of Government Efficiency cuts. Just last week, the General Services Administration announced a plan to shutter hundreds of federal office spaces across the nation, including the property on Heindon Road in Arcata that houses local National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association offices, and the Bureau of Reclamation office in Weaverville, which runs the Trinity River Restoration Project. Meanwhile, the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services has been told that technical assistance providers helping with a local project to address youth homelessness have been fired, making the project more difficult to administer.
But a growing local concern is the impacts the new administration’s actions will have on fire resiliency efforts throughout the North Coast.
“Since the federal funding freeze, we’re at a total work stoppage,” says Jim Cotton, vice president of the Willow Creek Fire Safe Council. “My biggest fear is we’re going to miss an entire fire season of work.”
Cotton says the council has been working in a cooperative agreement with a handful of other nonprofits to administer $5.1 million in funding through the U.S. Forest Service for fire resiliency work in an area that ranks in the 90th percentile for fire risk according to the Federal Register.
The funding was to be used to help landowners clear 100 feet of defensible space around their homes, identify water sources to be used to fight wildfires, create shaded fuel breaks protecting parts of the community and clearing ingresses and egresses to create both safe evacuation routes and clear access routes for firefighters and other first responders.
“All that is on hold, and we’re not sure if it’s even going to get done,” Cotton says. “The funding was in process and it’s been impounded, which isn’t legal. We’re stymied. We’re in limbo.”
Jill Demers, executive director of the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District, says the $5.1 million in funding referenced by Cotton is part of almost $10 million in wildfire resiliency and recovery funds her agency had secured for the greater Willow Creek area, all of which is currently frozen.
Demers says the funding was allocated through the U.S. Forest Service to be spent on cooperative forest management programs, mostly on non-federal land. The projects identified were brought forward by local community members and organizations, Demers says, and included those mentioned by Cotton “to help firefighters defend life and property,” as well as site assessments, forest management plans, fuels mitigation efforts and erosion control in previously burned areas.
In most cases, she said funds were to be spent with local contractors, noting that in addition to leaving important fire protection work undone, the freeze is also leaving local crews out of work. And Demers says she’s struggled to get answers as to why the funding has been held up or whether it will ultimately be released.
“I’ve spent more time on the phone with lawyers lately than I’d like,” she says. “We haven’t seen a federal payment in at least two months at this point, since before the new administration came in. We have been told, mostly via phone calls, not in writing, that many grants and programs are paused. We’ve been told some payments are being processed, but we’re not seeing that coming through.”
Demers says those payments are both reimbursements for work already done and funds slated to be released for future work. She says her “understanding” is that “anything Farm Bill related is going to be less impacted than anything through the Inflation Reeducation Act,” though she says official communications have been sparse.
As a small organization with no tax revenue that is almost entirely grant funded, Demers says the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District doesn’t have much wiggle room, so has been forced to halt any work that doesn’t have funding in hand and has given one of its staff members a layoff notice.
“We just have to be super conservative, which is heartbreaking, because it means crews in Willow Creek are not working and wildfire resilience work isn’t getting done,” she says. “The inability to plan out has been pretty crippling.”
Meanwhile, at least one local agency got some welcome news this week. Shelter Cove Volunteer Fire Department Chief Nick Pape says he got an email March 3 saying a fire resiliency grant that had been abruptly frozen Jan. 31 had again been approved.
The funds are part of a $6 million, three-year grant secured a couple of years ago, Pape says, for a project to create 100-foot defensible space buffers around every home and structure in Shelter Cove, and also clear vacant lots of fuels.
“It was really a game changer for the community,” Pape says of the grant, adding that the last couple of years had been spent planning, permitting and doing environmental review, with clearing work getting started this year with local contractors.
Then he says he got that Jan. 31 email saying a reimbursement request under the grant had been denied.
“We still to this day haven’t gotten a real explanation of exactly why, how it went down,” Pape says, adding the funds were part of the Inflation Reduction Act infrastructure bill passed in 2022. “It kind of put us all in shock.”
Now told the money is back in line, Pape says he’s taking a wait-and-see approach, not wanting to put crews back to work unless there’s assurance they can be paid.
“Before we fully start, we want to make sure the program is still going to have reliable funding from the federal government,” he says, quickly adding that he’s hopeful. “We’re excited to get those guys working again.”
Nonetheless, with peak fire season looming in late August through early October, Pape says the funding freeze has been a setback, though he says he’s still hopeful it can see buffers created around “most” structures and homes in the area by summer, though the vacant lots will likely have to wait.
“It definitely put us a month behind,” he says, saying he’s grateful to North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman and Second District Humboldt County Supervisor Michelle Bushnell for their help getting the funding released.
Demers, for her part, says she’s trying to remain optimistic and take heart from the “scrappy organizations” like resource conservation districts, fire safe councils and community groups she works with.
“Thinking about those folks in Willow Creek and working with people who have been through, time and time again, the threat of wildfire, especially in this era of catastrophic wildfire, I guess that’s the take home — we’re not quitting,” she says. “It’s just harder to do what we’re trying to do, and harder to help these communities.”
Cotton says the Willow Creek Fire Safe Council’s work will also continue with whatever funds are available. He says the council has a wood chipping program that sees volunteers drive a chipper around the community to chew up tree limbs and other fuels on private property. And he says efforts to eradicate invasive species — which proliferate and add to the ladder fuel accelerant loads that can quickly spread a fire from the ground to the crown — will continue.
“Right now, we’re basically a volunteer operation,” he says. “The Willow Creek Fire Safe Council is always looking for donations, always looking for volunteers.”
To that end, Cotton says the organization’s annual corned beef diner fundraiser is coming up March 14, and folks can find other ways to help on the nonprofit’s Facebook page, or just call (530) 629-6008
This article appears in ‘Breathing Room’.
