Placerville, Calif. bears all the markers of a community at risk of a wildfire. The city's rolling hillsides are dense with brush, which dries out during the hot summers. Older homes made of wood, which are more prone to igniting, are dotted throughout.
"It's a perfect storm for devastation," says Tanya Harlow, wildfire resilience officer for El Dorado County, where Placerville is located.
Local officials are trying to do something about it. The community is one of a handful piloting a program to help houses survive wildfires. Residents can get financial support to add fire-resistant building materials and to clear flammable brush around their homes. The program is largely funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
For three years, county staff has been preparing to enroll more than 500 homes. But under the Trump administration, the project has been stalled for more than a year. The county needs FEMA to approve the project plan, but the agency hasn't responded.
Placerville is one of hundreds of communities around the country waiting on a growing backlog at FEMA. States say that under the Trump administration, disaster funding payments have slowed to a trickle, delaying crucial projects that could help communities withstand wildfires, hurricanes and floods.
In all, FEMA owes communities almost $10 billion, according to internal agency documents obtained by NPR. Much of that funding would reimburse local governments for what they've already spent repairing infrastructure after major disasters.
Emergency managers from several states say the backlog in funding is having ripple effects through communities, stressing local budgets and delaying or potentially derailing disaster projects that have taken years to plan.
"We're just at a standstill and we're all very, very frustrated with the inability to do the work that desperately needs to be done," says Pam Bates, project manager for the Shasta County Fire Safe Council, which is also waiting on FEMA approval for a community wildfire project.
Grants get added review at FEMA
FEMA did not respond to questions from NPR about why disaster funding has slowed nor did it comment on the amount currently owed to states.
The logjam coincides with a decision last June by then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem began requiring all grants over $100,000 to be reviewed by her office to look for "waste, fraud, and abuse," including those from FEMA. A report by Senate Democrats found that significantly slowed disaster aid. Noem was fired by Trump in March. Her replacement, Markwayne Mullin, revoked Noem's review policy earlier this month, according to a statement from the agency, though the majority of funding still has not been released.
Some of the stalled grants help communities rebuild and retrofit infrastructure to better withstand future disasters, through the agency's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. The majority of funding is under the Public Assistance Program, which helps states repair major infrastructure after a disaster hits, like roads, bridges and water treatment plants. Communities plan and pay for those projects up front and then are reimbursed by FEMA.
"That creates all kinds of challenges for state and local governments," says Andrew Rumbach, who studies disaster policy at the Urban Institute, a think tank. "In some states, you're finding where they're having to really take emergency measures to pay those bills, which means potentially cutting other programs that people care about."
Preparing for wildfires before they hit
In many communities awaiting funds, the stakes are all too apparent.
When Adele Montgomery built her house in Placerville more than 40 years ago, wildfires didn't cross her mind. But as California's wildfire seasons have grown increasingly destructive in recent years, she's started working to make her home safer.
"You can see it's really beautiful and tree-lined," Montgomery says, walking in her backyard in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. "They say if a fire starts behind us, that it'll go straight down into the city of Placerville because of all the trees."
Montgomery has already trimmed tree branches away from her house and cleared the brush around it, creating what's known as defensible space. The biggest vulnerability is the aging, wooden deck surrounding her home, which wildfire resilience officer Harlow spots right away on a recent visit.
"That rotted wood is just dry and ready for ignition," Harlow says. "I saw a lot of holes and a lot of air space."
"That's the biggest thing that worries me," Montgomery says. "I don't want to be a fire hazard for someone."
Montgomery has applied to be part of El Dorado County's Weber Creek Project, a $25 million initiative approved by FEMA in 2023. A wildfire inspector visited her home and recommended removing the deck, as well as putting fire-resistant flashing around the base of her house. Under the program, homeowners are eligible for up to $40,000 of work, with the county managing the contractors.
Montgomery says the program's financial help makes the deck removal feasible for her.
"It's a lot of money to come up with when you're retired," Montgomery says. "I'm so ready. The deck is really a problem in my mind."
Still, Montgomery and other homeowners are waiting. Last February, Harlow says the county submitted an environmental review for the project's work to FEMA. The agency has to approve the review before funding is disbursed and work can start. But more than a year later, the county still hasn't heard from FEMA. Harlow says they had hoped to begin the project last year, in order to prepare for the coming wildfire season.
"We're educating our communities on the importance of this, but then there's no resources for them," Harlow says.
El Dorado County's project is designed to be a model, following research from wildfire experts showing that neighborhoods are less likely to burn if most homes participate. On Placerville's outskirts, state and local agencies are already thinning out the dense underbrush as another layer of protection.
"Real resilience really is at the community level," Harlow says. "If one home does everything they're supposed to do but their neighbors haven't done that same work, the probability of their home surviving is less."
Other California communities working on wildfire safety projects are seeing similar delays from FEMA. Plumas County in Northern California is waiting on $2.5 million for clearing flammable vegetation around homes. Shasta County Fire Safe Council's project to improve about 500 homes is also held up. With their FEMA grant set to expire in August, they're hoping the agency grants an extension.
"We have buy-in from the community and the problem is that we can't get through the process, which is mandatory in order to access the FEMA funding, because FEMA is not participating," Bates says of the Shasta County Fire Safe Council.
Disaster funding slows to a trickle
The delays at FEMA are significantly longer than normal, even for an agency known to be administratively slow, according to emergency managers from half a dozen states. FEMA reports show funding disbursal slowed beginning in June last year. In late February, FEMA released over $5 billion in recovery funds. Prior to that, the agency's public assistance backlog was more than $14 billion, according to internal FEMA data. NPR confirmed the data with several states awaiting funds.
"People are hurting in Western North Carolina from the most significant storm they've ever experienced," North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said at a Congressional hearing questioning Noem about her review policy in March. "I have reason to believe that you're violating the law either knowingly or unknowingly."
FEMA has lost thousands of employees since Trump took office and has been affected by recent government shutdowns. Trump has said that FEMA should be eliminated or significantly scaled down, shifting more disaster response to states. He appointed a 12-person FEMA Review Council to suggest reforms for the agency. While its final report has not been released, leaked drafts of previous versions show the panel may recommend shrinking the agency staff even further.
The Trump administration also cancelled another major grant program for disaster preparation, known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, because the program was "focused on 'climate change' initiatives and riddled with inefficiencies," according to a FEMA statement. A judge recently ordered that the program be reinstated, though the agency has not said when the cancelled funds might be restored.
Research shows that investing ahead of disasters saves money in the long run, since it can prevent costly damage and repairs. As the climate gets hotter, communities are facing more intense weather events, like hurricanes, floods and storms that produce heavier rainfall.
"If we stop investing from the federal level, that means that we may be rebuilding things where they're vulnerable to the exact same disaster as before, that we're making ourselves more vulnerable to future disasters, and that they're going to cost more," Rumbach says. "Mitigation has shown over and over again to be a good investment."
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