A Water Agency’s Perspective on Misaligned State and Federal Policies while Struggling through Caldor Fire Recovery Efforts for Disadvantaged Communities

The increasing occurrence of wildfires in California and western states is exposing that we have been managing our forest inappropriately and communities in the urban-wildland interface are at risk. Every fire is unique and the consequently available resources for assisting impacted communities for emergency response and recovery from the State and federal assistances can be also very different. It is difficult for any community to recover, but it is espeically so for those that are disadvantaged. The presentation will examine the disconnects and inconsistency in funding authorities and practices for the on-the-ground needs through the experience of disadvantaged communities impacted by the Caldor Fire in 2019. Caldor Fire is the fifteenth largest fire in Californian history burning near 220,000 acres of private and federal lands in El Dorado County, which is mostly rural and with significant federal forest lands. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied Individual assistance program for impacted residents in an economic disadvantaged community in question of their intention to rebuild. A small water district that serves a disadvantaged historical Gold-Rush town with its source of water in national forest, both damaged severely by the fire, faced great challenges in jurisdictional vacuum between state and federal agencies, and restrictions in funding or resource applicability. Substantial policy and practice reviews are necessary to align and maintain consistency between state and federal policies and funding authorities, and to correct FEMA’s practices that are mostly built on flooding and other disasters but seemingly awkward in wildfire recovery efforts.