Last year, during California’s historic fire season, which burned 4.2 million acres across the state, Hale found himself in high demand. While some cannabis businesses were prepared with contingency plans in the event of an emergency, many were not.
“It was absolutely chaotic,” he said. “There would be brief periods of time where we would have anywhere from 15 to 25 requests for immediate solutions because of fire threat. We weren’t sure what each day was going to bring.”
Some clients called Hale as firefighters pounded on their doors instructing them to evacuate. They needed help getting money safely off their premises before wildfires or would-be thieves descended. Dozens of armored security vehicles dashed across California to pack up bundles of cash, but it could take several hours for security teams to reach remote locations like Humboldt, Hale said.
While Sacramento is the capital of the state, the Emerald Triangle is the capital of cannabis in California, if not the whole country. It started as a haven in the late 1960s for hippies and people drawn to the back-to-the-land movement, which espoused a return to nature and sustainable homesteading.
Since then, the Emerald Triangle has blossomed into a mecca for both legal and illegal cannabis.
Humboldt County began licensing once-clandestine operations in 2016 under the state’s medical marijuana program, and it expanded cultivation licenses in 2018, when recreational cannabis became legal in California. Of the 7,951 cultivation license holders in the state, nearly 3,000 are in the Emerald Triangle, and 1,702 of those are in Humboldt County, according to the state Department of Cannabis Control.
Drawn to the promise of cashing in on the new green rush, growers from all over — including Mexico, Bulgaria and Laos — flocked to the region, gobbling up land and diverting water for their crops.
But the Emerald Triangle is also home to generations of local growers. Some of the younger ones were born into the trade while their elders made the transition from black market operators to fully licensed cultivators. Among them is a farmer and fire chief named Manning, who is being identified by only his middle name to protect his identity.
Tired of waiting for outside fire agencies — some of which must use helicopters to reach the area — to respond to wildfires in remote terrain, Manning is working to create the area’s first fire district as drought and wildfires threaten the historically verdant region. He must coordinate with the county to establish the department’s mission and draw boundary lines and then secure enough local support to get the issue on a ballot.
“The goal is to get to the fire really quickly because we live here,” he said.
In Humboldt County, where growers and other residents prefer to keep to themselves, the threat of wildfire is ever-present and costly. Some cannabis cultivators have resorted to building their own fire rigs using trucks, hoses and water drums.
Almost all of the fire departments in the county rely on volunteer firefighters who do not receive salaries. The departments are largely self-funded through donations, fundraising and grants, and the money they raise pays for projects like maintaining firehouses and buying equipment.
“We’ve been the rebel hippie fire department forever,” Manning said of his all-volunteer crew.
He replaced an aging 1980s fire engine this summer with a new one that cost about $150,000. It was recently parked in Manning’s driveway, which doubles as a runway for his small aircraft.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
