"FEMA slowed grants intended to help states such as California and Colorado prepare for and prevent wildfires, a Washington Post analysis shows."
"Nestled in the middle of rural Northern California woods, the Hoopa Valley reservation is primed to burn. Wildfires sweep through every few years, over the same burn scars, threatening to consume the nearly 900 homes on the brush-filled valley floor.
And with the wild, intensifying swing of historically wet winters often followed by unrelenting heat, the dense vegetation surrounding the reservation’s houses, dirt roads and evacuation routes has become dangerous. The tribe has gotten lucky in the past, but RobRoy Latham knows that it only takes minutes for the bone-dry, sacred mountains to erupt in fire.
The tribe’s emergency manager and disaster expert, Latham spent nearly four years working on a grant to clear about 600 acres of potential fire fuel and create defensible spaces around evacuation roads, communication towers, water tanks and dozens of vulnerable homes, documents provided to The Washington Post show. The Federal Emergency Management Agency obligated $7 million for the work, Latham said, and the state agreed to match 10 percent of the grant, according to an email viewed by The Post.
Then, Latham said, “everything stopped.” The hazard mitigation grant the Hoopa Valley Tribe sought comes out of an often bureaucratic program under the Department of Homeland Security that helps recovering communities prepare for the next big disaster. It is one of about 1,000 such grants held up in President Donald Trump’s second term, according to internal records obtained by The Post."
Brianna Sacks and Kevin Crowe report for the Washington Post May 8, 2026.
