Thumbnail photo: The Del Norte Fire Safe Council hosted a prescribed burn workshop in March 2025 aimed at helping residents learn how to harden their home against wildfire. | File photo by Ethan Caudill-Derego
Noting that staffing capacity within the U.S. Forest Service is a challenge when it comes to wildfire mitigation, Aaron Babcock outlined a “broad landscape style” approach that stretches from the Klamath River in the south to the Oregon border in the north.
The Smith-to-Klamath Shared Stewardship Initiative would focus on state, federal, local and tribal partnerships within Del Norte County who are ready to “help perform the stuff that needs to be done as far as wildfire mitigation,” the Del Norte Fire Safe Council county coordinator told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
The “stuff” includes about 30,000 acres of shaded fuel breaks with 9,500 acres centered around communities impacted by wildfire, Babcock said. The initiative also aims to conduct prescribed burns on about 100,000 acres, he said.
“That sounds like a lot, but it’s needed,” Babcock told supervisors. “These small burns are great for teaching and directly protecting small communities or businesses. If we want to really stop large fires we have to get serious about putting some fire on the ground.”
The Smith-to-Klamath Stewardship Initiative seeks to protect communities in Del Norte’s interior as well as local transmission lines and U.S. 199. It would consist of multiple projects and is similar to a $75 million stewardship agreement Sierra Pacific Industries had reached with the U.S. Forest Service in 2025.
Babcock told Del Norte County supervisors that the Smith-to-Klamath Stewardship Initiative’s prescribed burns and shaded fuel break projects would cost about $135 million over the course of about 10 years.
“There’s no firm number that’s available right now, but there’s a lot of support and that number is reasonable,” he told supervisors.
Babcock made his pitch to the Board at the invitation of Chris Howard, whose district includes the U.S. 199 corridor.
Howard also shared a letter he had sent to Ted McArthur, acting deputy regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service’s Southwest Regional Office advocating for the initiative. He called the proposed initiative an opportunity for all stakeholders, including private landowners, to “increase the pace and scale of forest management across ownerships.”
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Howard said Del Norte County wants to continue to engage with the U.S. Forest Service as the stewardship initiative develops
“There’s been a lot of good work going on right now and a lot of opportunities that are opening up with the current administration,” Howard said. “We’re taking advantage of some of these opportunities now to make some requests.”
The Del Norte Fire Safe Council is a community organization that aims to teach residents how to protect their homes and communities from catastrophic wildfires. In addition to spearheading fuel reduction projects around the Gasquet, Hiouchi, Big Flat, Low Divide and Rock Creek areas, the Fire Safe Council has established the Del Norte Prescribed Burn Association and held prescribed burn workshops.
Babcock, a Gasquet resident whose home was narrowly spared by the Smith River Complex wildfires in 2023, said he had begun pitching his idea for the Stewardship Initiative to Forest Service officials in Washington D.C. in November and December. He referred to directives at the state and federal level to expand fuel reduction efforts, but said that prescribed fire needs to be included.
“Most of our land in Del Norte County is federal or state managed and so it’s a really hard ask to put it all on the local (ranger) districts here,” Babcock said. “So I’ve been contacting Washington and showing that we have lots of partners like the county, the Del Norte (Resource Conservation District), the Del Norte Fire Safe Council, CalFire, tribal entities and nations that are ready to help perform the stuff that needs to be done as far as wildfire mitigation.”
In addition to seeking to implement about 30,000 acres of shaded fuel breaks, the proposed Smith-to-Klamath Shared Stewardship Initiative, also wants to establish a fuel break across a 3,000 acre ridge that stretches from the state line to the Klamath, according to Babcock.
This ridge serves as a rough dividing line between state-managed and federally-managed lands and borders Green Diamond property and Redwood National and State Parks, Babcock said. According to him, the ridge has been identified as a strategic control point for “almost every fire we’ve had.”
The stewardship initiative also seeks to pre-identify areas where fire is expected to stop and put fuel breaks in ahead of time instead of waiting until the last minute, Babcock said.
“This is also using some fuel breaks that were put in during the Smith River Complex fire,” he said. “Some of those lines have remained open, thankfully, they haven’t been demolished, but utilizing that as well as the burn scars.”
The initiative also seeks to thin tree plantations that had been established after logging operations between the mid 1950s through the 1980s, but had not been managed, Babcock said. The initiative would focus on thinning the existing trees in those plantations and growing some larger ones.
Finally, Babcock referred to the stewardship initiative as an economic driver that creates local jobs and produces biomass that can be used to generate electricity.
“Basically everybody is super supportive of this,” he said “We’re looking at trying to figure out the mechanisms that are going to be put in place — how this funding that would be coming from federal and state authorities would be funneled into Del Norte and how that’s going to be managed. As this moves forward, I’m hoping to gain county support for this idea.”
The Smith River Complex wildfires burned a total of 94,600 acres with more than 88,600 being on public land. Residents in the area evacuated their homes, Caltrans closed U.S. 199 and Pacific Power shut off the transmission lines that bring electricity into Del Norte County.
