_{Thumbnail: Del Norte Office of Emergency Services Public Information Officer Bill Steven snapped this photo of the Smith River Complex wildfires burning above Patrick Creek Lodge and U.S. 199 on Aug. 16, 2023.}

(Updated at 12:03 p.m. Friday with a correction: The California Climate Investments grant is a state program and Cal Fire is a state department. There is a $70 million federal grant available, though Del Norte Fire Safe Council County Coordinator Aaron Babcock said he’s not sure how it will be distributed.)

Flames from the Smith River Complex crept within 600 feet of Aaron Babcock’s Gasquet home in August, 2023.

A former firefighter, Babcock is the county coordinator for the Del Norte Fire Safe Council. He said he and his wife chose not to evacuate from the smattering of wildfires burning around the Gasquet area. Instead, he and two of his Fire Safe Council colleagues helped clean out gutters and create extra defensible space for about 50 homes threatened by the fire.

“The houses we had worked on definitely got skipped over,” Babcock told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. “Because they had firefighters preemptively clearing around people’s homes in case the fire came through, those homes didn’t have to have anything done [to prevent them from burning], which was great because it lowers the amount of firefighting resources that were needed and helped protect other homes.”

Through his role with the Fire Safe Council, Babcock received a $3 million Community Wildfire Defense Grant to help Del Norters harden their own properties against wildfire. Through that funding, Babcock has hired a five-person crew whose goal is to reach 372 homes in the Gasquet, Hiouchi, Big Flat, Low Divide and Rock Creek areas.

Now, with the Trump association freezing federal grant dollars, Babcock’s program is in jeopardy. He said he’s looking for other funding sources — a California Climate Investment grant may be an option — but as it stands, he’s anticipating having to layoff his crew after March 15.

“I called the Washington office and that’s when I, for sure, got the official, ‘it’s on pause and we don’t know when it’s going to be available’ — and[the woman on the phone] didn’t seem very ecstatic about it or hopeful,” Babcock said. “Now we haven’t been able to get ahold of her.”

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant was part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Approved in 2021, the bill set aside $1 billion for five years to combat wildfires across the country. According to Babcock, since that funding focused on fuel reduction work on private land, it was great for Fire Safe Councils since they generally work with local residents.

The Del Norte Fire Safe Council was able to request reimbursement through that grant in December. Babcock said he and his crew had completed about $60,000 of work through the CWDG and was ready to ramp up work this spring.

In addition to the fuel reduction work for those who, for financial or physical reasons, need help clearing the vegetation around their houses, Babcock and his crew had planned on providing free fire risk assessments to their homes.

They had planned on creating fuel breaks near Gasquet, Hiouchi and Low Divide as well as doing burn piles in Gasquet, Rock Creek and Big Flat.

“The shaded fuel breaks I had identified in Hiouchi, Gasquet, Rock Creek and Big Flat [were] kind of my priorities,” he said. “My plan was to do as much as we possibly could, which would account for at least 1,000 acres between all of them.”

Babcock said he was also going to use the $3 million CWDG to support the newly-created Del Norte Prescribed Burn Association, which is holding its first workshop next Tuesday through Thursday, weather permitting. He noted that a century-plus of fire suppression, logging and the proliferation of Douglas fir plantations fueled wildfire risk in Del Norte’s interior. But it wasn’t always that way.

“Historically this land burned quite a bit, not only from natural fires, but also our indigenous cultures that were here before us were lighting fires to protect their community and protect livelihoods,” Babcock said. “We shut that down and now everything is just growing. The undergrowth around most of these communities is so extreme, it’s almost a 100 percent mortality rate when fires do come through because you’ve got so much fuel on the ground. Even the tallest trees succumb to heat.”

Pointing out that the Tolowa Dee-ni’, Yurok and Karuk peoples have a history of using fire as a land management tool in their communities, Babcock said the Prescribed Burn Association seeks to do much the same thing. The local group has been getting support from the Humboldt Prescribed Burn Association. Next week, he said, the Del Norte Fire Safe Council will introduce residents to drip torches in a safe manner, so they can do that work on their own property.

“We had extra funding from a [California Climate Investment] grant the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation was administering through their Forest Service for Education and Outreach program,” Babcock said. “That was a way, since we have a funding freeze, to get some stuff continuing to go forward even if I don’t have my crew available right away.”

According to Babcock, his crew had been hired full time and were offered healthcare benefits and a 401K program.

District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, who represents the Gasquet, Hiouchi, Big Flat and Low Divide areas and is headed to Washington D.C. this weekend, said he plans to talk to anyone that’ll listen to him about the $3 million grant the Fire Safe Council is relying on to do its fuel reductions work.

This includes Congressman Jared Huffman and U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, Howard told Redwood Voice on Thursday. He also plans on talking to lawmakers and representatives about funding connected with Last Chance Grade and the Northwest Forest Plan in addition to attending National Association of Counties activities. But, Howard said, he’s hoping to dispel some of the uncertainty around the status of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant.

“A lot of that funding is through the USDA and I know grants that I work under are continuing to be funded so I’m not entirely sure how all these freezes are working,” he said. “I’m not sure how those are operating, but those are questions that need to be asked and hopefully answers will be given.”

Howard said he would be back in Del Norte on March 6.

Though she wasn’t speaking specifically about the Del Norte Fire Safe Council, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey said she’s heard concerns about how freezes in federal funding would impact local nonprofit organizations. But things are changing on a daily basis, she told Redwood Voice, that it’s really difficult to trust the information that comes from the county’s lobbyist in Washington D.C.

Starkey will be taking part in a Del Norte Democratic Central Committee-sponsored “Coffee and Conversation” gathering on Saturday focusing on changes in federal policy and funding and local impacts. 

She said the nonprofits she has heard from so far include the Community Food Council and the North Coast Rape Crisis Team. On Tuesday, Del Norte County resident Bob Jackson asked Starkey and her colleagues about potential impacts to local Head Start programs.

Starkey said she asked for a list of all the federal funding the county relies on.

“It’s that fine line of between, ‘The sky is falling,’ and being prepared,” she said. “It’s like, OK, how worried do we get? Really, I’m just trying to hear the concerns, hear the stories and try to anticipate the impact should it happen. So we are at least one little tiny step ahead of it in the event we need to be.”

On Thursday, though there have been changes at the federal level — on Tuesday a judge blocked the Trump administration’s freeze on grant dollars — Babcock said as far as he’s concerned, his funding is still frozen.

However, the $70 million California Climate Change Investment grant, funded with federal dollars filtered through the Cap and Trade Program to a state grant affiliated with Cal Fire, may be a possibility, Babcock said. He said he was reaching out to State Sen. Mike McGuire to see if those dollars could be an addition to the Community Wildfire Defense Grant or if it would replace that grant.

Babcock said a $70 million federal grant is also a possibility, but he said he wasn’t sure how that would be distributed.

Babcock said he did reach out to the Trump administration via a guest who stayed at his home during the Boatsmith White Water Festival earlier this month. He said his guest, Colorado resident Patricia Woolard, told him she knew Trump and said she could bring a letter to him.

“I wrote this cover letter and basically my wildfire plan and sent him six pages of stuff to read,” Babcock said, adding that Woolard had told him via phone on Friday that Trump had read it. “He was supposedly impressed and he was going to figure out how to make things work. But it’s also Trump. You never know if it really went through his desk.”