Mendocino County Fire Safe Council crew: Mentorship, Stewardship, fighting fires before they start

This is the next installment of an exciting series of podcasts and companion articles we are collaborating on with journalist Sarah Reith. You can listen to her podcast by hitting the play button below, or read the abbreviated version of the story below. 

The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council offers a number of programs to help homeowners and communities become more resilient to wildfire. These services include free home inspections, education and video series, help with community organization, low-cost reflective address signs and even some grant opportunities.

They also make a lot of fuel-reduction work happen, and a point of pride for the MC Fire Safe Council is its highly trained professional five-person crew, which has been doing fuel-reduction work around the county as part of the organization since May of 2022. A large portion of the crew’s activity is heavy yard work, from weedeating to thinning shrubs and limbing trees, for the DSAFIE program (Defensible Space Assistance for Income-Eligible seniors and persons with disabilities). Crew members also deliver Community Chipper Days, after community members have done the limbing and pruning themselves, and assist at Community Work Parties (funded by Measure P), and they can be found working on larger grant-funded roadside fuel-reduction projects as well. They also occasionally do contract fuel-reduction work for other nonprofits including Sherwood Firewise Communities. 

Right to left: Davette Hayes, Freddy Romero, Gabe Villa, Danny Rockey, Eric Patino

The crew is heavy on mentorship. Crew lead Daniel Rockey Sr., who also serves on the tribal council of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, has been on the crew from the beginning. He started cutting firewood when he was a high school student in Santa Rosa, and he’s been wielding a chainsaw ever since. He’s also worked for loggers and built fences all over the county. For Danny, the most important part of the job is maintaining what he describes as a family-like bond among the crew members. While he wouldn’t describe himself as an educator, he says, “I’ve been around long enough to know something (and) I always watch my crew. Just to see the expressions on their faces when it goes the way it’s supposed to, that feels good. If I can’t do it, I don’t expect them to do it.”

One of the principal objectives of the MC Fire Safe Council is stewardship, which means that each crew member is trained to protect not just homes from wildfire but the natural environment as well. That includes proper protocols regarding nesting birds and native plants, as well as ongoing training sessions with foresters and other experts. Stewardship also means making sure landowners are comfortable with the work that’s being done on their property. 

“We like to work with the people,” says crew member Alfredo (Freddie) Romero, Jr., “to make sure we’re doing what they want, and that we’re doing our job at the same time.” Romero grew up in Hopland, but says that, even after being on the MC Fire Safe Council crew for nearly four years, he continues to see parts of the county that are new to him. “We’ve seen plenty of wildlife,” he recalled. “A little bit of everything. We’ve seen bears, mountain lions, foxes, skunks, all the way up to squirrels and birds,” including eagles, which is always a treat.

Gabriel Villa, who says that he is also “one of the OGs” of the MC Fire Safe Council crew,  views the educational and outreach aspects of the job as both his favorite and the most difficult. “That’s where I think we really shine,” he reflected over breakfast at Lumberjack’s Restaurant in Willits before a long day of chipping in Brooktrails. “We’re not going to just say, oh, we have to cut it down; it’s a fire hazard.” Many people are also concerned about maintaining privacy or shade. When working on private property, the crew aims to educate people about what the best fire safety choices would be, but also to respect the choices that people make about trees or bushes in close proximity to their homes.

Villa is well aware that some property owners are apprehensive about people with chainsaws approaching their landscaping, especially in the wake of overzealous vegetation management in other sectors. “I think we pride ourselves on not coming in and doing that,” he emphasized. “Just really working with the homeowners and providing a fire-safe property by the time we leave, and not breaking any hearts.” 

Davette Hayes, who joined the crew in September, is the newest member, though she grew up in Covelo with a chainsaw in her hands, and can make near-surgical cuts with it. “There really isn’t any hard part” to the job, she reflected. “I love what I do. And my crew is great… I like the fact that I get to be outside; I like the fact that I love what I do. That's the kind of work that I’ve always done, growing up in the hills, cutting our own wood, cutting trees.” Davette has an equal amount of love for her chainsaw, which is possibly the most hands-on piece of equipment, and the remote mower that the Fire Safe Council recently purchased from R.C. Mowers. “The mower is awesome,” she opined. “It goes up hills, it just does everything,” saving crew members steep hikes up and down rough terrain with a weedeater. As for the old-fashioned handheld equipment, she concluded, “I like everything about the chainsaw.” 

Eric Patino says he is still learning about his chainsaw, even after being on the crew for almost two years. He has also worked as a wildland firefighter. “It’s a continuous learning experience, and I love it,” he declared. “I’ve lived in Mendocino all my life, and there are lots of places I’m still discovering. For instance, Monday we could be in Covelo, somewhere way out in the mountains, and then Tuesday we could be all the way out in Navarro. The scenery is beautiful. My phone is full of different scenery that I’ve found out there.” As a firefighter, he was a sawyer, cutting vegetation away from the blaze all the way down to the soil to stop the fire. “I love firefighting,” he says. “But I love to prevent it from happening in the future as well.”