Nearly 200 join wildfire drill west of Garberville

Helicopters circled over Southern Humboldt Community Park while firefighters hauled hose up steep grass to turn a hillside west of Garberville into a live wildfire drill. Nearly 200 people showed up Sunday, a sign that rural readiness here now means more than classroom briefings, especially in a place where the next fire can start far from the nearest station.

The 2026 Southern Humboldt Multi-Agency Wildland Readiness Drill was hosted by the Briceland Volunteer Fire Department with support from neighboring departments and regional partners. Crews from local volunteer fire departments and CAL FIRE worked alongside residents in a setup that mirrored how Southern Humboldt actually responds, through volunteer networks, mutual aid and tribal communities that all have to move quickly when smoke appears over the ridge. Shelter Cove Fire’s Jack Hargrave said the point is to make sure “the first big fire residents see should not be coming over the hill into Shelter Cove,” and he said a two-week strike team assignment can bring about half a million dollars into the local area.

That mix of emergency planning and local economics matters in a county that lives with fire every season. CAL FIRE says fires occur throughout the state every day during fire season, the California Incident Data and Statistics Program puts California fire department responses at about 300,000 total emergencies a year, and CAL FIRE operates 808 stations statewide. Humboldt County’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan, approved in 2019, ties local drills to the county’s wildfire hazard mitigation strategy.

Southern Humboldt has already seen why those plans matter. The 2024 Point Fire burned 85 acres east of Garberville on Alderpoint Road, and the 2025 Bridge Fire near Alderpoint reached 403 acres and threatened 16 structures. In July 2025, a Humboldt County strike team made up of engines from several Southern Humboldt agencies deployed to the Green Fire in Shasta County, showing that readiness here feeds both mutual aid and the local firefighting economy.

The hillside exercise also exposed the hardest part of rural wildfire response, moving hose, water and people across steep terrain before a fire outruns the road network. With the North Coast Redwoods District stretching across more than 130,000 acres and holding 55 percent of the planet’s remaining old-growth redwoods, the stakes go beyond one neighborhood. For residents in isolated areas, the lesson is simple: know your exits, prepare early and do not wait for smoke on the ridge to decide.