Federal wildfire disaster relief funding will be coming to Tuolumne County to help reimburse some costs incurred during the Moc Fire that broke out Aug. 20 and was declared contained Aug. 30, Tuolumne County government staff learned Tuesday.
The word came from staff with the state Office of Emergency Services, who said Tuolumne County was added to a major disaster declaration.
The late addition of Tuolumne County came days after President Donald Trump reversed himself last Friday, when his administration first tried to explain why California should not receive federal disaster aid for the devastating blazes that burned more than a million acres and 3,000 homes, contributed to at least eight deaths, and blanketed much of the state in smoke in August and September. Later Friday, the president approved a package of wildfire disaster relief for California.
What the federal relief means here on the ground in Tuolumne County is that towns, special districts, and private nonprofit organizations that provide essential social services are eligible for public assistance funding under the disaster declaration.
Anyone who sustained property damage in the Moc Fire has until the end of the business day today to apply to the federal Small Business Administration program. Anyone who sustained economic losses has until May 24, 2021, to apply. The SBA program offers low-interest loans to businesses and nonprofits affected by the wildfire that need temporary relief to continue operating.
The multi-day blaze burned more than 2,800 acres on two sides of Highway 49, including property in the Hetch Hetchy company town of Moccasin, reached up to Priest Reservoir, destroyed two structures, prompted evacuations for thousands of homes and rental properties, closed access roads and businesses, cut off whatever tourism was coming to the Highway 120 corridor, and drew the attention of more than 680 firefighters and support staff, including 73 engine crews, 12 dozer drivers, 17 water tank truck drivers, three helicopter crews, and staff at evacuation centers in Sonora.
Staff with the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit could not provide an estimate of what it cost to fight and suppress the Moc Fire as of Tuesday afternoon. They also did not provide a cause of the fire, which impacted residents, workers and business owners in Big Oak Flat, Groveland and Pine Mountain Lake.
The fire was reported at 2:26 p.m. Aug. 20, and evacuation orders were lifted at 8 a.m. Aug. 25. All roads were reopened by 6 p.m. Aug. 26. The blaze was declared contained the evening of Aug. 30.
The Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit was in charge of working the fire. Although some federal Bureau of Land Management lands were within the burned area, the blaze was never managed as a federal incident. The Moc Fire prompted declaration of a local state of emergency in Tuolumne County.
An initial estimate of damage and costs caused by the Moc Fire in the company town of Moccasin totaled $890,000, Will Reisman, press secretary for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, said Tuesday.
No one was injured and no structures burned in Moccasin. The City and County of San Francisco, which owns Hetch Hetchy, potentially qualifies to get all $890,000 in property damage and costs reimbursed, Reisman said.
“Cal OES has not determined whether all costs will qualify,” Reisman added.
The government of Tuolumne County incurred response and recovery costs of about $150,000 during the Moc Fire for evacuations, emergency management and sheltering operations, Jason Terry, a senior administrative analyst with Tuolumne County, said Tuesday.
That $150,000 does not include any of the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit costs of staffing, fighting, containing, cleaning up and investigating the cause of the fire. It also does not include road repairs needed due to fire operations, Terry said.
The disaster assistance notification from Cal OES on Tuesday means the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover 75 percent of qualified costs incurred during the Moc Fire, the state will cover 18.75 percent, and Tuolumne County will be responsible for 6.25 percent.
Terry estimated roughly $50,000 repairs in roads would make a total $200,000 application from Tuolumne County, “which would mean we could potentially be reimbursed $187,500 if approved.”
Steve Anker at Priest Station Café at the top of Old Priest Grade estimated he lost a minimum of $11,000 during the Moc Fire. He said he lost business, paid his workers during the fire, and lost a lot of food that went bad.
Anker said about 300 acres of Priest Ranch burned, including miles of fencing and the fall pasture where he usually keeps cows and horses. He estimated he lost $3,000 he had to buy for feeding the animals when the pasture burned, as well as $5,000 in burned fencing.
Anker praised people at Moore Brothers Scavenger Co., who set up a free trash container to collect close to 15 tons of food that spoiled in people’s refrigerators during power shutoffs for the Moc Fire.
“Moore Brothers took all the rotting food and they did that without charging anybody,” Anker said.
An accounts clerk named Shirley at Moore Brothers Scavenger Co. confirmed they paid for the 40-cubic-yard trash container and they paid for the trucking transport to Cal Sierra Waste in Sonora, but she didn’t want to say how much they spent covering that service for free. She said people at Cal Sierra Waste in Sonora also did not charge for the contents of two different loads, so they took part in giving back to the community also.
“We emptied it multiple times,” the accounts clerk said. “We allowed the public and anybody affected by the evacuations, our whole community, Groveland, Big Oak Flat, Pine Mountain Lake, to bring spoiled food items at no cost, close to 15 tons.”
Terri Wemmer, the owner at Miners Mart on Highway 120, said her business stayed open 24 hours for law enforcement, firefighters and everyone from the community who stayed during the Moc Fire. Some people were dealing with 10 to 12 houses keeping people's generators going. They had to have a place to get gas. Miners Mart was the only business open.
“We donated about $3,000 and purchased Moc Fire T-shirts to help pay for an early warning system up here, to be used for fires, bad storms, any disaster,” Wemmer said Tuesday. “We hope to get about $6,000 to try to get that started. We also took $1,000 and anybody can nominate a local resident to get their rent paid for the month of November. People are donating again so we almost have another $1,000 so somebody else can get their December rent paid.”
Wemmer said she wants to thank the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office, the CHP, Cal Fire and Caltrans for helping her business keep a supply chain going flowing through the Moc Fire and the evacuations.
For more information about SBA disaster loans and assistance for losses sustained in the Moc Fire visit https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Declarations/DeclarationDetails?declNumber=6071842&direct=false online.
Contact Guy McCarthy at gmccarthy@uniondemocrat.net or 770-0405. Follow him on Twitter at @GuyMcCarthy.