MENDOCINO CO., 4/15/25 – Excitement and determination rippled through the air inside Harwood Hall in late March, as community members, fire officials, experts and organizations gathered to share skills and spirit. Organized by Alicia Littletree Bales, a local activist, the Forest Health Extravaganza aimed to unite and empower community members around forest and watershed health and fire protection.
The free community event opened with a keynote address from Yurok tribal member, cultural fire expert and co-founder/executive director of Cultural Fire Management Council, Margo Robbins. Robbins shared traditional Yurok wisdom on fire management, as well as the “why” behind various indigenous burning practices. She stressed the event’s importance as it related to the local community of Laytonville, acknowledging that “the land here evolved with fire as well, and so the more people know about returning fire to the land and how to do it safely, the better, not only to restore the land for health, but also for wildfire protection.”
Robbins went on to explain that Yurok tribal culture is fire dependent for various reasons beyond safety; food, medicine and basket materials are all important tribal resources that disappear if not properly managed with fire. Emphasizing the mutually beneficial nature of fire preparedness, she stated, “You may or may not have personal interest in the cultural values that we as native people have tied to the land, but what does affect everybody is wildfires. Whether or not you live in the forest, fire knows no boundaries. It doesn’t just stay in the forest, it reaches out and takes over communities.”.
According to Robbins, Cultural Fire Management Council was awaiting final signature on a USDA grant that would have comprised approximately 50% of the organization’s future funding. The council is a Humboldt based non-profit whose mission is to facilitate the practice of cultural burning on the Yurok reservation and ancestral lands. But the grant was recently frozen by the Trump administration, and Robbins doesn’t hold out much hope that the funds will come through.
The council is looking for other sources of funding to fill the deficit, and is committed to continuing its work. But Robbins described the recent cuts to federal funding as “devastating”. Cultural Fire Management Council currently maintains twenty full-time and six part-time employees. It originally operated on a volunteer basis, and Robbins said it may need to return to that model if other funding does not materialize..
Asked about the importance of bringing native perspectives to fire management, Robbins said that, along with reducing hazardous fuels, intentional fire can improve water quality and wildlife habitat, and provide balance to local ecosystems.
“We can’t continue to just take and take and take, to do resource extraction at its maximum without giving something back,” she said. “And that something back is fire.”
In addition to the educational presentations offered around such topics as healthy landscapes, prescribed fire, community access to forest health resources and financial funding and grant opportunities for fire prevention work, many community organizations and agencies were at the event sharing expertise and information.
Cherry Creek Fire Safe Council, a Laytonvilled based community group, participated in the Extravaganza with an information booth. Laytonville resident and Cherry Creek Fire Safe Council member Lynn Tarkowski was present, spreading both knowledge and native grass seed. After 25 years as an ecology oriented landscape gardener in the Bay Area, Tarkowski retired to 80 acres in Laytonville where she became captivated by the native plants of the area.
Tarkowski shared her perspectives on the interconnectedness of the human and plant communities,
“A native plant – to me it means something that has evolved in a community of other native species over thousands and thousands of years, and it has all these intimate relationships that have developed with the other species. And of course, that includes the people who are here, and who have been here for a long time, and their cultural practices. I think about the relationships that we have to each other in a community, and then the relationships that the plants all have to one another too, and all the different parts of the ecosystem.”
She went on to relate this interconnectedness to fire management, explaining that her newfound knowledge of fire and cultural practices gleaned from the Extravaganza resonated with her knowledge of native grasses in our area.
“We have a bunch of native bunch grasses that have these really big root systems that build soil and hold moisture,” Tarkowski explained. “The above-ground part might not be as big as the root system. So when you think about a fire coming through and burning everything above ground, then underground you’re still storing carbon from the roots there, and the soil-holding capacity is still there..”
After Robbin’s keynote address, Eel River Recovery Project and participating teams reported back to the community on the Tenmile Creek Basin Forest Health Grant Project, which is a CalFire funded endeavor to restore ecological health to 900 acres of the Tenmile creek forest and drainage. A panel of community leaders and experts facilitated by Lourance Hall of the Round Valley Prescribed Burn Association told the crowd how local communities can obtain resources to support forest health, which was followed by a panel on prescribed fire and forest health featuring nine agency heads and leaders, facilitated by Will Emerson of Bell Springs Fire Department, to close out the day.
In between absorbing the wealth of information provided, attendees were able to refuel with meals and drinks provided free of charge by Los Bagels, Eel River Brewing Company, Eel River Organic Grass Fed Beef and Frey Vineyards. The communal meals, cooked up in the Hardwood Hall kitchen courtesy of the local company Catered by Tree, added a friendly and familiar feeling to the atmosphere.
Sunday’s portion of the event consisted of a prescribed burn of approximately 13 acres of slash piles at Vassar Ranch in Laytonville, for which participants had been asked to register in advance.