Humboldt Couple Grows Tree Service Into Wildfire Mitigation Business

Florentina Marie Jones launched Jones Family Tree Service during maternity leave alongside her husband, a former U.S. Forest Service firefighter with nearly a decade in wildfire suppression. What began as a residential tree-care operation has since pivoted toward something more urgent: keeping Humboldt County communities from burning.

The company now focuses on vegetation management, defensible-space clearance and large-scale wildfire mitigation, drawing clients from Willow Creek to Fortuna, Arcata and McKinleyville, where homeowners are racing to satisfy insurance requirements and local defensible-space timelines.

"Our million-dollar idea is to protect our communities from devastating wildfires," Jones said.

Jones Family Tree Service built its niche around the parcels that conventional crews avoid: steep, remote or logistically complicated terrain where, as Jones put it, they go "where bucket trucks don't and other companies won't." That positioning addresses a genuine gap in the local market, where plenty of homeowners face mitigation deadlines but few contractors will take on the harder jobs.

Jones participated in Startup Humboldt, a program connecting local entrepreneurs to mentorship and resources through Cal Poly Humboldt, College of the Redwoods and Lost Coast Ventures. She credited the program with sharpening the company's financial strategy, its marketing approach and, critically, the story behind its work.

Her three-year plan calls for scaling to roughly 40 full-time employees and building crews capable of completing 100- to 200-acre mitigation projects. A central piece of that vision is training local residents so communities retain skilled capacity after crews move on, rather than depending on outside contractors who disappear when a contract ends.

The stakes are concrete. Humboldt County faces tightening insurance markets, regulatory defensible-space requirements and a wildfire risk that has grown with shifting climate patterns. Jones framed the company's mission around prevention rather than reaction: do the mitigation work now so fewer Humboldt communities "go up in smoke" during fire season.

Her husband's Forest Service background gives the operation technical credibility on the fire-behavior side. That combination of suppression experience, local hiring and community training positions Jones Family Tree Service not just as a tree company but as a working piece of the region's wildfire preparedness infrastructure.