###

Press release from the Petaluma Police Department:

On August 21, 2026, at approximately 6:38 p.m., the Petaluma Police Department received a report of an at-risk missing adult who had left his Petaluma residence earlier in the afternoon and had not returned home.

Due to the missing adult’s age and reported memory issues, officers immediately began investigating his whereabouts and entered him into the Missing and Unidentified Persons System (MUPS) as an at-risk missing person. Information regarding the missing adult and his vehicle was also distributed to allied law enforcement agencies.

During the investigation, Petaluma Police Department personnel utilized the Flock Safety Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) network to search for the missing adult’s vehicle. An initial Flock detection showed that the vehicle had traveled outside of Petaluma and into Solano County.

As the investigation continued, additional Flock detections showed the vehicle continuing north through the region. Over the course of the evening, the vehicle traveled through Solano County and continued north through Lake and Mendocino counties before ultimately reaching Humboldt County.

Each new Flock detection provided PPD personnel with updated information regarding the vehicle’s location and direction of travel. PPD dispatchers used this information to continually update allied law enforcement agencies as the search expanded across multiple jurisdictions. This allowed agencies farther north to be notified as the vehicle approached their areas and helped focus resources along the vehicle’s anticipated route of travel.

Later that evening, Flock information indicated the vehicle had continued north toward Humboldt County. PPD provided the updated information to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol.

At approximately 11:35 p.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office located the missing adult and his vehicle. He was found safe, and his family was notified so arrangements could be made for his safe return home.

The missing adult had traveled through multiple counties and more than 150 miles from his Petaluma residence before being located. The Flock ALPR network provided PPD with timely investigative leads throughout the search, allowing officers and dispatchers to track the vehicle’s general progression from Solano County through Lake and Mendocino counties and ultimately into Humboldt County.

This incident highlights how ALPR technology can be used as an investigative tool during time-sensitive public safety incidents. In this case, information obtained through the Flock network helped connect multiple jurisdictions and allowed law enforcement agencies to focus their search as the missing adult continued traveling farther from home.

The Petaluma Police Department would like to thank the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol, and other allied agencies that assisted in bringing this incident to a safe conclusion.

###

PREVIOUSLY

• Eureka City Council Unanimously Rejects Proposal to Install License Plate-Reading Cameras
• The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Appears to be Violating Its Own Policy and State Law on Automated License Plate Readers
• Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Responds to Outpost Investigation Into Its Automated License Plate Reader Program
• ‘A Climate of Fear and Mistrust’: Petition Urges Humboldt Sheriff, Board of Supervisors to Cancel Flock Safety Contract Amid Privacy Concerns
• Humboldt Supervisors Hash Out Privacy Concerns Over Flock’s Automated License Plate-Reading Cameras, Direct Sheriff’s Office to Improve Transparency
• The Privately Owned Flock Camera in Westhaven Is Here to Stay — And the Owner Doesn’t Really Care if You Don’t Like it
• The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Recently Added Two More Flock Cameras to Its Surveillance Network; 11 Now in Operation

Press release from the Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission:

The Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission has won the Location Managers Guild International Award for Outstanding Film Commission/Office for its work supporting the production of “One Battle After Another.”

The award was presented during the 13th Annual LMGI Awards ceremony at The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California, on Saturday, August 22. The Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission was selected from an international field of finalists representing some of the world’s most prominent filming destinations.

“To be seen and recognized by location managers, the people we work alongside and support, means the world to us,” said Cassandra Hesseltine, Humboldt Del Norte Film Commissioner and current president of Film Liaisons in California Statewide. “Location professionals understand the years of relationship building, problem solving and community coordination that happen behind the scenes to make filming possible. Receiving this recognition from them is an incredible honor.”

Written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another” brought a major motion picture production to Humboldt County in January 2024. During its time in the region, the production spent approximately $2.1 million in direct local dollars, made 990 local hires and worked with more than 90 local vendors.

“This is what production brings to a community,” Hesseltine said. “It creates economic stimulus, jobs and opportunities for local businesses. But the impact goes beyond dollars. Movies become part of our quality of life and part of our community’s identity. People form emotional attachments to the films made here, and there is a real sense of pride and bragging rights that comes from seeing our home on the big screen.”

The relationship between the Film Commission and the production began long before filming. Hesseltine’s first meeting regarding the project took place in April 2019, before the pandemic. Nearly five years passed between that initial meeting and filming in Humboldt County, making it the longest Hesseltine has ever been connected to a production before cameras began rolling.

“Productions often begin with a conversation years before a crew arrives,” Hesseltine said. “This project is a powerful example of why long-term relationships and persistence matter. To see it finally film here, witness its impact on our community and then receive this recognition is incredibly meaningful.”

The Film Commission supported the production throughout its time in the region, connecting the filmmakers with local locations, government agencies, businesses, property owners, workers and community resources. The Commission was nominated for the award by the location team from “One Battle After Another.”

The evening marked a double victory for the film. Location professionals Michael Glaser, Michael Wesley and Rich Heichel also received the award for Outstanding Locations in a Contemporary Feature Film. Together, the two honors recognized both the creative work of the film’s location team and the local support that helped bring the production to life.

“We congratulate Michael Glaser, Michael Wesley, Rich Heichel and the entire location team on their well deserved win,” Hesseltine said. “We are deeply grateful that they trusted us, brought this remarkable production to our region and nominated our office for this honor.”

“This award belongs to our entire region,” Hesseltine continued. “It belongs to our Deputy Director, Anibal Polanco, our Board of Directors, our volunteers, local governments, businesses, property owners, residents and everyone who welcomes filmmakers and helps make productions possible here. We may be a small film office serving a rural community, but this recognition proves that the work we do and the extraordinary landscapes and people of Humboldt and Del Norte counties can stand alongside those found anywhere in the world.”

The LMGI Awards celebrate outstanding creative contributions by location professionals in film, television and commercials, as well as film commissions that provide exceptional service to the production industry.

For the Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission, the award represents more than the success of one production. It recognizes years of work promoting the region, supporting responsible filming and building an industry that creates economic, educational and cultural opportunities for the rural communities of California’s North Coast.

“This is one of the greatest honors of my career,” Hesseltine added. “For our little corner of the world to receive this kind of international recognition is incredibly meaningful. We are proud, grateful and ready for the next production.”

The Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission is a program of Redwood Region Entertainment and Education Liaisons, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and supporting film production throughout Humboldt and Del Norte counties. The Commission provides free assistance to filmmakers while working to create economic, educational and cultural opportunities for the communities of California’s Redwood Coast. For more information, visit hdnfc.org.

Press release from the Incident Management Team:

Location: Hoopa, CA
Acres Burned: 7,610
Containment: 74%
Start Date: August 7, 2026
Personnel: 941
Hand Crews: 20
Dozers: 2
Engines: 31
Water Tenders: 27
Incident Website: linktr.ee/MilePost18Fire
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61593309803992
Public Information: 530-625-2124
Hours: 8 AM – 8 PM
Email: 2026.mp18@firenet.gov

Current Situation: Command of the Mile Post 18 Fire was transferred to California Interagency Incident Management Team 2 yesterday evening. California Team 2 recognizes California Team 1 for the extraordinary efforts they made in suppressing much of MP18 Fire. Their decisive actions coordinating air and ground resources slowed the fire’s spread and established secure containment lines under difficult terrain conditions. Their proactive communication ensured unified situational awareness among all cooperating agencies. California Team 1’s dedication, expertise, and teamwork were instrumental in protecting local communities and critical infrastructure during a complex and rapidly evolving incident.

The Fire’s footprint did not change yesterday, though there was some single‑tree torching in the northern interior along Norton Creek Road. Firefighters made good progress with mop-up along the northern and eastern edges of the fire. Highway 96 is now open; however, there remains a possibility of debris rolling out onto the highway, which could result in temporary road closures. Travelers are urged to use extreme caution and awareness when traveling Highway 96. Traffic may be congested along Highway 96 and other roads near the fire due to the start of the school year and continued fire equipment activity in the area.

Today, crews will continue with mop-up and suppression repairs along the primary containment and contingency lines. On the north side of the fire, heavy dead and down fuels will continue to smolder. Rollout remains possible on steeper slopes, though fewer active heat sources are being observed. Significant heat remains in the Mill Creek drainage as the interior island continues to consume heavy vegetation. Trees adjacent to the line have experienced prolonged fire exposure and remain a potential falling hazard. Minimal fire activity is expected elsewhere within the fire’s footprint, and the fire is not expected to move out of its current footprint.

Crews are initiating suppression repair efforts along secondary contingency lines farther out and will continue to backhaul equipment and supplies off the fireline in places where active suppression is no longer needed. This equipment includes hoses, fittings, and portable pumps.

Evacuations: Humboldt County has issued evacuation warnings for parts of the fire area. Please visit protect.genasys.com for the latest alerts. Weather and Smoke: Temperatures are consistently 10-15 degrees cooler on the fire. Today is expected to be the warmest day of the week, with high temperatures in the 90s. Minimal winds are expected, but conditions will remain hot and dry.

Road Closures: Closures remain in effect for Hostler Ridge Road, Mill Creek Road, and Big Hill Road.

###

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

###

Four firefighters, two helicopter pilots and a contractor bulldozing a fireline have died in Colorado, Utah and Oregon this year.

Fast-moving fires have burned millions of acres and destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings in the West. California, which is having an unusually quiet fire summer, has deployed engines and crews to fight fires raging in Colorado and the Pacific Northwest — but even this well-resourced state continues to feel vulnerable.

The U.S. has been at Preparedness Level 5 since July 18, a status that means the federal government is committing the highest possible level of crews, aircraft and firefighting resources to wildfires across the country. And yet requests for help or equipment are going unanswered.

How we collaborated on this story

Rachel Becker from CalMatters reported with Amy Alonzo, of The Nevada Independent; Robert Chaney, of Montana Free Press/Mountain Journal; Mike Koshmrl, of WyoFile; Brooke Larsen, of The Salt Lake Tribune; Joseph T. O’Connor, of Montana Free Press/Mountain Journal; and Olivia Prentzel, of The Colorado Sun.

This dangerous fire season hit as the Trump administration has reshaped how America fights wildfire — consolidating crews from across Interior Department agencies into a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service. The new agency and the U.S. Forest Service are pursuing “full suppression” of every new blaze.

Administration officials say the aggressive approach is essential to protect firefighters and communities during a hazardous summer in an abnormally hot and dry West. Critics, though, worry it could worsen a long-standing problem: Decades of extinguishing wildfires and climate change-induced drought have left Western forests full of dry fuels, contributing to conditions that can produce catastrophic fires. Making full suppression the default response, they argue, could perpetuate that problem while demanding more firefighting resources than the government has available.

A coalition of nonprofit newsrooms in six Western states conducted roughly two dozen interviews with federal and state officials, former agency leaders and firefighters, experts and advocates. Reporting from California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming shows how on-the-ground changes made by the Trump administration have affected our ability to fight fires amid increasingly destructive conditions.

Federal officials dispute that the reorganization played any role in the deaths of firefighters this year. And while officials in several Western states say the new fire service has so far caused few disruptions on the ground, interviews with former government officials, firefighters and researchers show there are concerns about what the administration’s broader changes could mean for how the country lives with fire over the long term.

The 10 a.m. rule

Some see the full suppression strategy as the return of a discredited 1930s-era “10 a.m. rule,” a former Forest Service directive to put out new fires by the next morning. Today, that strategy demands vast resources, critics point out, while removing the option used by the agency in more recent years to allow carefully chosen fires to burn naturally for the benefit of forests. They argue that will leave forests more vulnerable to catastrophic fires in the future.

Planned burning, or “prescribed fire is never even going to scratch the surface of the number of acres that need to burn every year,” said Johanna Nosal, a professional forester who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in California, Colorado and Montana for 15 years before accepting a federal buyout in 2025.

“We’re putting these fires out, and sometimes we’re successful at it … but it’s just a year-to-year Band-Aid,” Nosal told the collaboration, “and what eventually happens is you have a lack of resources and these weather periods that will create these huge blazes that no matter what you will do will keep spreading.”

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz argues full suppression is essential for this hazardous summer. And Brian Fennessy — former fire chief for the Orange County Fire Authority, now director of the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service — defends a policy shift it’s made: Federal officials who want to promote forest health can no longer make the final call about whether to let a fire burn.

Previously at the Interior Department, “when it was a fire for resource benefit, fire [officials] may have had a say, but they did not hold the final decision,” which was made by agency land managers, he told The Colorado Sun. “Now, we hold, on the fire side, that final decision.”At the Forest Service, underlying policies still provide the authority to manage wildfire to benefit forests. But a proposal to move the Forest Service (USDA) firefighting program into the U.S. Wildland Fire Service is stoking fears that could change.This summer, Schultz said, the Forest Service has not revived the 10 a.m. rule: “We aren’t making any commitment to that time frame.”

Instead, he told the collaboration, its full suppression strategy includes two approaches: Direct and indirect.“Direct is when you go right at it. Indirect is when you look at the topography,” he said. “The tactics will be different. Firefighter safety is critical, but also looking at the values at risk. We’re looking at structures. We’re looking at timber. We’re looking at grass. We’re looking at fencing. All of those things go into how we prioritize,” he said.

Adrienne Freeman, a Forest Service spokesperson based in California, said the approach ultimately comes down to firefighter safety, the structures and people at risk, and the agency’s firefighting capacity nationwide.

With crews stretched thin on fires raging across the country, she said, there simply isn’t the bandwidth to manage a fire for ecological benefit right now.

“If something goes funny, we don’t know if we’re going to get the resources to manage it — and we pretty much know we aren’t because that’s not where houses are,” Freeman said. “No one is going to make that decision when we’re at PL5” — the nation’s highest level of fire activity and response.

Even past fires that drew public criticism over the perception that the Forest Service “let them burn” often weren’t being managed for ecological benefit at all, according to a 2023 Forest Service analysis. Researchers found that concerns for firefighter safety — not nature — drove delayed suppression far more often.

“This is the thing: people think this is black and white, and nothing about land management is black and white,” Freeman said.

Utah supports the full suppression policy, “mainly because of where we’re at condition-wise, the historical drought, the dry fuels, and the intensity of these fires,” to protect firefighters and communities, said Jamie Barnes, recently appointed as director of the Department of Natural Resources.

“We will never put people in an area that is unsafe for firefighters. We will always take an indirect approach from that if we have to,” she said.

With the country at its highest level of preparedness, resource allocation will vary by fire, Schultz acknowledged.“But in terms of this time of the year, right now, we are not going to just sit back and let fire go and achieve other objectives,” Schultz said. “We’re going to be aggressively suppressing.”

‘Fear of fire’

Bobbie Scopa is a 45-year firefighting veteran who worked for local, state and federal agencies, primarily in Western states. When she began in 1974, blazes were smaller, she said. “They weren’t ripping like they do now.”

The Forest Service shifted away from the 10 a.m. policy and began allowing some fires to burn for landscape health in 1971. But pressure from states has sometimes discouraged that federal policy, said Nosal, who now lives in Butte, Mont.

“Pretty much every administration I worked under,” she said, “there’s been at least one year when they’re like, ‘We’re not gonna let managed fires happen, we want to get everything under control as soon as possible.’”

Nosal spent her 15 years with the Forest Service removing and thinning trees and other vegetation that would have been cleared out by smaller fires, she said. In the sagebrush ecosystems that cover the Great Basin, suppression has led to encroachment by pinyon-juniper woodlands and other trees.

“Even in those really dry forest types, you’re seeing denser forests and more continuous forests than would have been there,” she said. “That means when a fire does roll through … you just get these really intense fires that burn everything, which historically isn’t the natural fire regime.”

In other areas, such as the Sierra Nevada, the forests are just too dense, she said.

“Historically, California state agencies have funded wildfire safety projects on federal lands in response to a lack of federal investment,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins in May.

Since the start of the Newsom administration alone, Crowfoot said, the state has invested nearly half a billion dollars in projects on federal lands.

The spread of homes and other development into the wildland-urban interface (WUI) also has changed firefighting, Scopa said. “If a fire starts before there are houses, and firefighters show up, the Hot Shots cut lines, firefighters lay lines along the edge of the fire, they have a simple fire,” she said. “They’re going to come up with a strategy to anchor and flank the fire while it’s small.”Add just a few houses, and “some of the firefighters are going to go to the houses and start prepping to protect the properties,” she said. “Now, you have fewer firefighters on the fire. It totally complicates work for the firefighters. And it requires more people.”

Scopa estimated federal agencies would need another 30,000 to 40,000 firefighters to be able to implement full suppression, “and you still wouldn’t be successful.”

Multiple requests for hand crews and engines went unfilled on the Widemouth 2 Fire, Tony DeMasters, incident commander of Great Basin Team 2, told The Tribune. The fire has burned nearly 130,000 acres in western Utah.

“We’re getting international help,” he continued. “That’s just how severe the fire season is, and we’re only in August. We got another 8, 10, maybe 12 weeks to go.”

It’s common for resources to be this scarce, DeMasters added, when the Great Basin region and nation are at Preparedness Level 5. “When we go to those planning levels, that means everything is strapped.”

The Forest Service has roughly 14,000 employees who manage and respond to fires, including around 11,800 firefighters.

The Wildland Fire Service employs fewer than 6,000 federal personnel and supports around 900 tribal personnel to cover more than 500 million acres of public and tribal lands across the country.

A new fire service

To create the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, the Trump administration combined firefighters from four Department of the Interior agencies: Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Fennessy comes to the role after nearly eight years as chief of the Orange County Fire Authority, where he built one of the country’s first all-hazard incident management teams and pushed an aggressive aviation strategy that became a model for regional wildfire response.“The goal of this is to reduce internal redundancy,” Brock Uhlig, a chief at the new service, told Nevada lawmakers at a May interim committee meeting. “Members of the public will see the exact same product.”By July in Nevada, it was “kind of business as usual and everyone’s still collaborating and responding to fires,” said Ryan Shane, State Forester Firewarden. But, he acknowledged, it was early in the season. “Time is going to tell what improvements we are going to see … or if there are any gaps.”

Utah officials have seen the transition go “very smoothly,” said Jamie Barnes, recently appointed as the director of Utah’s Department of Natural Resources. “We haven’t seen any issues with firefighters on the ground or financial resources.” In California, for all the local, state and federal borders within the state, firefighters from different agencies often converge on the same wildland fires.

As the Timber Fire scoured steep, coastal national forest lands around Big Sur, Cal Fire stepped in with its own incident management team to orchestrate the firefight — the federal teams were busy on other fires, or taking mandatory rest.

Earlier this summer, the fast-moving Dove Fire took off near a Yosemite gateway town. As the fire burned, Emily Kilgore, a public information officer for Cal Fire’s Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit, said she hadn’t noticed any changes to the deployment of federal resources.

“They were requested. They responded. They worked in tandem as one of our cooperators to assist us to gain containment on the Dove Fire,” Kilgore said on the phone, over the beat of a helicopter responding to another fire that had just ignited nearby.

Cal Fire headquarters agreed, saying there have been no changes to its fire suppression relationship with federal agencies.

The “field-level folks” who have spoken with Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit based in Sparks, Nevada, haven’t seen any negative impact, president Riva Duncan told the collaboration.“But speaking to fire managers, they said it was pretty clunky for them,” Duncan said. “They’ve restructured decision-making authority, so there’s a lot of ‘Where do I go to now if I need something approved?’ There’s not as much communication as folks had hoped for.”

“Clunky” communication may be occurring at times, Fennessy said. “I mean, we’re talking about thousands of people. I’m sure that probably occurs. But that’s not the feedback I’m getting and it’s not from my people.”Officials are still investigating whether the transition played any role in the late June deaths of three federal firefighters who were killed while battling the Knowles Fire in Colorado and a fourth who died later from his injuries. Fennessy said he finds the suggestion that there may be a connection “offensive. It is absolutely wrong. … It’s just ludicrous.”

There is “absolutely zero connection between the rollout, the unification and these fatalities,” he said. “I am close enough to the investigation that is still ongoing, to certainly say that.”

The firefighters were part of a helitack crew that got trapped near the Colorado-Utah border when high winds drove small, lightning-started wildfires in Utah. Sydney Watson, 27, of Warrior, Alabama, worked for the Wildland Fire Service, as did a fourth firefighter, Nathan Matthews, 43, of Lincoln, Nebraska, who was injured in the burnover and died later.Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan, and Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona, worked for the Forest Service.

Duncan stressed that investigations remain ongoing and no conclusions are available. “But fatalities really affect the workforce,” Duncan said. “There’s a lot of fire season left and people are fearful. The investigations take a long time to come out, and it’s frustrating if there are important lessons to learn.”

Fears for the future

Rep. Andrea Salinas, an Oregon Democrat, pointed out to Schultz in July that removing fire personnel from the four Interior agencies separates them from former colleagues who are responsible for restoring forests and reducing fuels.“This proposal would fracture the critical communications link between land management and fire management,” Salinas said at a July 22 House Agriculture Committee hearing.The disconnect could mean that decisions once made between colleagues will have to be negotiated among agencies, said Brad Washa, an assistant professor of Wildland Fire Science at Utah State University.“Down the road, will [fire personnel] be sitting in a different office and not next to the folks that are managing the natural resource?” asked Washa, a former BLM firefighter.When working together, for example, a land manager could easily alert firefighters to not bulldoze lines in areas that could affect endangered species or cultural resources, he said. That may become more difficult now. “The land management agency might lose some of its ability to exert its authority in managing the natural resource,” Washa said.

These issues are why the National Association Forest Service Retirees opposes the creation of the new fire agency, president Bill Avey said.“We don’t think wildfire should be divorced from the land — that’s been a policy failure,” he said. “We continue to stand on the fact that this national wildland fire service is the wrong solution.”

But Fennessy argues there is no disconnect.

“We’ve not moved anybody on the Interior side out of where they are stationed. Offices that hold both land managers and executive firefighters, those offices haven’t changed,” he said. “They talk to each other every day. … I question the motive or intent of those that want to make that argument.”

Fennessy said his agency recognizes that “land managers are the resource experts” and that they are “intimately involved and engaged.” Fire officials and land managers “need to be in lockstep,” he said, “when we’re doing prescribed fire or preparing for whatever treatment it may be.”

The Forest Service is undergoing its own reform right now. Its headquarters are moving west from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and regional centers will be closed, with research consolidated in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Forest Service has lost 16% of its workforce since 2024, Salinas noted.“This sweeping reorganization creates more questions than answers and the fact that it’s being implemented right as wildfire season is upon us is alarming,” Salinas told Schultz. “Doing so threatens the Forest Service overall — the loss of staff, and the institutional knowledge they have, should not be casualties in the Trump administration’s reorganization of the Forest Service. Each is too valuable to be lost.”

Few states are better equipped to weather the federal firefighting changes than California.

California has invested billions in firefighting, a strategy that has carried through multiple administrations, with different emphases at different times. But it all amounts to this: California has its own people and equipment to rely on, including the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet.

Cal Fire — officially the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — is the largest state-run fire department. As California experienced some of its most destructive wildfires on record, Cal Fire’s staffing skyrocketed — climbing past more than 12,000 employees, according to the agency.

It now employs more wildland firefighters than any agency in the world besides the U.S. Forest Service, according to a 2025 white paper led by researchers with Stanford University’s Climate & Energy Policy Program.

The department is primarily responsible for rural, mostly privately owned wildlands that make up about one-third of the state’s acreage.

But federal agencies are tasked with protecting about half of the state.

California spends big because it has a lot at stake. Last year’s catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles alone killed 31 people, hastened the deaths of hundreds more, and cost up to $131 billion in total property and capital losses, according to one UCLA analysis.

California’s leadership is concerned about the Trump administration’s reorganization of the Forest Service, its staff cuts and its closure of research facilities.

California has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on wildfire safety projects on federal lands under Newsom — spending Crowfoot said has often compensated for a lack of federal investment.

“While I understand the intention to operate a more efficient federal agency, many of these changes could impact our state’s wildfire readiness and create added public safety risks,” Crowfoot said in his May letter to Rollins.

Crowfoot said that it’s critical to work with federal partners who have enough money and staff to get ahead of the next disaster.

“If we fail to do so, we will again be faced with disaster recovery costs that far exceed the costs of preventing disasters from happening in the first place.”

No simple answer

The Department of Agriculture’s 2027 budget proposes transferring the departments, which includes the Forest Service, wildland firefighting resources and responsibilities into the new Wildland Fire Service.

The department awarded a $1.16 million contract to study consolidating all federal wildland fire operations into the new agency, according to a statement on Aug. 4. The department expects the report to be complete by Feb. 15, 2027, which means its results won’t be available for the fiscal 2027 budgeting that begins in September.

The Forest Service extinguishes more than 95% of the fires on its forests, Scopa said, but pursuing full suppression permanently wouldn’t be realistic.

“There’s no simple answer. We’re not gonna put [out] all the fires,” she said. “We’re never going to be successful. … The environment is not conducive to that, the fuels are not conducive to that, the staffing is not conducive to that.”

I had just finished performing my story show at a combination bowling alley/theater in Minneapolis called the Bryant Lake Bowl and Theater, and while I was breaking down a waiter named Randy said,

“Hey you got a couple laughs tonight. Not too shabby for a Tuesday. You did all right. Sometimes when new people perform you can hear the paint fade it’s so quiet.”

“Well thanks, man. I came 2,000 miles to do this show and I’m just glad I didn’t suck.”

“Yeah, isn’t that life? Constantly avoiding sucking, just trying so hard not to blow it.”

“Constantly avoiding sucking? That’s perfect. I should make that the title of my next show.”

Then he said, “Hey, I bought this new sound system for my car and I got a CD that sounds incredible. You got to hear it.”

We went out to his rusted Toyota and he cranked up his CD, “The Greatest Hits of the Guess Who.”

“This is the music you wanted me to hear?” I ask him as “American Woman, stay away from me” blasted out.

“What, you don’t like it?”

“It’s OK. I guess. I’ve just never met anybody who actually bought a Guess Who tape.”

Randy asked me where I was going after Minneapolis and I told him I was driving south on Highway 61 along the Mississippi River.

“You gotta stop at this tiny town called Trempealeau on the Wisconsin side. There’s a cool old hotel within a block of the Mississippi and it’s worth checking out.”

###

It was a beautiful ride on that old highway hugging the big river and I drove into Trempealeau to find the hotel, right there on Mississippi. Sailboats and barges were drifting by in the late afternoon sunlight. There was hardly a person on the street. The only sounds were birds chirping.

I walked into the old Trempealeau Hotel and the bartender poured me a pint.

I noticed a stage on the lawn behind the bar.

“Do you have bands play back there.”

“Oh yeah we have local bands every weekend.”

“Any touring acts come through?”

“Well last summer we had this big “Dinosaurs of Rock” shindig with some ’60s relics. Mike Pinera of Iron Butterfly that had a hit with “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” and Cannibal and the Headhunters, who played “The Land of a 1,000 Dances.” And the big headliner was Tiny Tim.”

“Wow, you’re kidding. I thought he was long gone.”

Tiny Tim.

Now, to explain: Tiny Tim was this virtuoso ukulele player who played old-timey songs in Greenwich Village and sang in this bizarre high-pitched falsetto voice. In the mid ’60s he wore his hair past his shoulders, way before long hair was everywhere. Tiny Tim became a huge national star by playing his hit song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” on the Laugh-In show and Johnny Carson. In 1969 he married Miss Vicky on the Johnny Carson show with 40 million people watching. Hard to imagine now.

“So, Tiny Tim’s the headliner. What was he like?”

“A real piece of work, let me tell you. We sold over 800 tickets in advance and this was going to our biggest show ever. It’s the end of summer and people would be coming from all over.

“Day of the show, Tiny Tim comes waddling in wearing a dirty American flag T-shirt. The guy’s big as a barn, with long, stringy red hair. He sits and scarfs down two dinners, some pastry and four beers with a god damn straw. Can you believe that? It’s the middle of the day and he’s half in the bag already.

“He gets up to leave and has to balance himself and push up from his chair. He’s wobbling and muttering to himself.

“I’m thinking, ‘That’s the last we’ll see of him. No way he makes the show. I’m going to have to refund a lot of money.’ I was sweating bricks.

“A couple hours later, the show’s raging. Cannibal and the Headhunters are singing ‘The Land of a Thousand Dances’ and the crowd’s going nuts, dancing on picnic tables, pounding beers.”

“Iron Butterfly does this wild half-hour version of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ with a burning oil drum. There’s a guy in front of the stage with no shirt on juggling cooked bratwursts. It’s a big-time party but there’s no sign of Tiny Tim. Everybody’s having a ball except me. I’m freaking out.

“Then suddenly he appears next to me listing back and forth like a ship out at sea.

“I hear, ‘Now, let’s hear it for the star of the night, TINY TIM!’

“He tries to walk up the stairs but can’t make it, so two of us have to push his big ass up from behind. He stumbles on stage, weaves over to the microphone and stares out at the crowd for 10 solid seconds, teetering back and forth.

“Everybody’s hooting and hollering and Tiny Tim’s eyes are rolling to the back of his head. I can hardly stand to look. It seems like he’s about to fall over but then as soon as he hits that first chord on his ukulele he’s completely transformed, like Zorro or something. He’s TINY TIM, PROFESSIONAL ENTERTAINER!

“He starts blasting away ‘On Wisconsin,’ ‘This Land is Your Land,’ ‘Tip Toe Through the Tulips,’ Dylan songs Tin Pan Alley stuff, just amazing. The crowd’s going bananas, dancing all around. Tiny Tim’s slapping five and laughing. The crowd singing along. I never saw a guy surprise me so much in my life. Talk about rising out of the ashes, the guy brought tears to my eyes. Tiny Tim really made a believer out of me that night.

“The next morning I was wiping down the bar and saw Tiny Tim standing in the middle of the street, wearing that dirty American Flag T-shirt, staring out at the Mississippi River with this Chesire cat smile. He looked so peaceful and happy, watching that big river roll by.

“It was weird because the day before Tiny Tim looked like one of the saddest guys I’d ever seen. I thought, ‘How could a guy fall that far? Millions of people watching him on Johnny Carson, all that fame and money, and now he’s a total mess of a man?’ I felt sorry for him, I really did.

“And now, day after the show he looked like the happiest guy in the whole damn world. Well, I don’t mean to exaggerate mister, but Tiny Tim was definitely the happiest guy in Trempealeau, Wisconsin.”

###

Jeff DeMark is a writer and musician.

###

Offshore wind developer RWE announced that it has accepted a “settlement” with the Trump Administration. In exchange for abandoning its offshore wind lease off of Humboldt County’s coast, the German energy company will receive $1.22 billion to instead invest in fossil fuel projects. The Trump Administration has reached similar settlements for projects on the East Coast, which are being litigated, and the California Attorney General’s Office has sent the Trump Administration “notices of intent to sue” for other settlements on the West Coast.

What does this settlement agreement mean for the future of offshore wind off Humboldt’s coast?

Matt Simmons, climate attorney at EPIC, and Jen Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, join the program to discuss. 

###

PREVIOUSLY:

• McK Gas Station Held Up at Gunpoint Early This Morning; Sheriff’s Office Seeking Suspect

###

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On August 20, 2026, at approximately 4:30 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested 27-year-old McKinleyville resident John Davis IV in connection with the robbery of the Shell Gas Station on Central Avenue in McKinleyville, which occurred on August 19, 2026.

Following the robbery, deputies conducted extensive follow-up investigation, including reviewing surveillance footage, conducting probation searches, interviewing witnesses, and collecting evidence related to the incident. Through these investigative efforts, Davis was identified as the suspect. 

Davis was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following charges:

• P.C. 211 – Robbery
• P.C. 1203.2 – Violation of Probation

Anyone with additional information regarding this case is encouraged to contact the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Tip line at (707) 268-2539.