Last Redwood Slated for Removal in Lower Redway Gets a Temporary Reprieve

Work resumed Thursday on the removal of the last old-growth redwood on a residential property in Lower Redway — but by late afternoon, the tree still stood. A small group gathered on the public road outside the property had watched through most of the day as a crew worked to bring it down. Then law enforcement arrived, safety concerns were raised about felling the massive tree near an open road, and word came from Humboldt County Planning Director John Ford that closing the road would require an encroachment permit the crew did not have. With the planning department closed today the earliest that permit could be filed is Monday.

The crowd broke into shouts of victory, albeit, temporary.

The tree is the last of five old-growth redwoods that homeowner Robert Scarlett, a Cal Fire firefighter, sought to remove from the half-acre property he purchased last October at the corner of Briceland Road and Oakridge Drive. Scarlett obtained a Cal Fire hazard exemption, after a Cal Fire forester deemed the trees a danger to the residence. Four came down in January. The fifth — reportedly nearly 10 feet in diameter and estimated at several hundred years old — was spared after Humboldt County issued a stop-work order amid the outcry.

The county required Scarlett obtain additional documentation supporting the claim that the remaining tree posed a hazard. Months later, the county lifted its stop-work order after Scarlett submitted independent arborist and forester reports finding the tree had internal rot, likely from a lightning strike, that they said made it a hazard to the home. Scarlett declined to comment Thursday though an article by the San Francisco Chronicle reported his attorney has said previously that Scarlett disputes allegations that have circulated and is focused on resolving the matter lawfully.

Many in the community believed the trees were never Scarlett’s to remove, despite the purchase of the land in which the trees grew on. Lower Redway sits within the Q Zone, established under Humboldt County Ordinance 2112 in 1996 to protect old-growth redwoods near the John B. DeWitt State Natural Reserve. The ordinance bars removal of redwoods over 12 inches in diameter without a finding of imminent danger of falling and requires a special permit even then. Scarlett never applied for one. The county, operating under a position it had held since a 2022 dispute involving a PG&E substation removal in Eureka, had told Cal Fire’s forester during the inspection that a state Cal Fire exemption superseded local zoning — including the Q Zone. By the time Planning Director John Ford found language in the California Code of Regulations suggesting otherwise, four trees were already gone. How a Cal Fire hazard exemption and the Q Zone interact has not been formally resolved. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell said Thursday the county is still working it out. The topic goes before the Board of Supervisors on June 2.

“The county dropped the ball,” said Sue Maloney, a Southern Humboldt resident and one of the most vocal opponents of the removal. “They should have required a permit. They didn’t notify the neighbors. It’s just a debacle of mistake after mistake.”

Thursday’s gathering was small and mostly quiet — a handful of neighbors, a pregnant woman, young children, and longtime redwood advocates standing near the public road on the warm, spring day, watching. Their signs read “Honor the Elders,” “Save the Q Zone,” “Hands Off Old Growth Redwood.” Workers walked past them, also subdued, and largely without incident. The tension did rise in a few short bursts where an occasional shouts of “boo” and “shame” and at one point a middle finger exchanged between a protester and a family member of the homeowner. But for most of the day people just watched, in what appeared to be something closer to grief than anger.

The fight over old-growth redwoods in Humboldt County is not a new one, and some of those standing on that road Thursday have been in it for decades. Among them was Darryl Cherney, who co-founded the Humboldt County chapter of Earth First! in 1986 and helped organize Redwood Summer in 1990 — the three-month campaign of nonviolent direct action that brought thousands of activists to the North Coast to protest industrial old-growth logging. He later co-founded the campaign that led to federal protection of the Headwaters Forest Reserve near Eureka. Before Redwood Summer began, he and fellow organizer Judi Bari were injured when a pipe bomb exploded in their car in Oakland. A jury awarded them $4.4 million in 2002 after they sued the FBI for civil rights violations. Thursday, he stood on a public road in a residential neighborhood watching a single tree be prepped for removal as he frantically made calls to those who could potentially intervene.

“Every single tree that’s standing is a miracle,” Cherney said. “That whole perspective of ‘we saved the redwoods, so we’re done’ is nonsense.”

But this fight is not the timber wars of the 1990s, and everyone here knows it. There is no distant corporation, no industrial logging operation. The man whose decision brought these people to this road is a neighbor. Scarlett grew up here. Some of the people protesting outside his fence watched him grow up, may have even celebrated milestones in his life, have known his family for years. But the tensions here have touched more than the small groups on either side of this issue present on Thursday. Social media posts and comment sections reflect the same divide playing out on Briceland Road. Some back Scarlett’s right to manage his own property, with a few offering to show up with chainsaws. Others question the process that allowed the removals and the motivations behind them.

The divide does not fall along clean lines. Some who personally like Scarlett cannot support what he has done. Some who sympathize with the protesters still believe a property owner has the right to make decisions on his own land without the neighborhood weighing in. Online arguments have followed people off their screens and into the street, where expletives have been exchanged between neighbors passing a property they see as the site of an irreplaceable loss. Others push back hard, dismissing the opposition as overreach — neighbors who need to mind their own business telling a man what he can do with his own trees on his own land.

But many here believe the stakes go beyond any one man’s property rights. The redwoods in Lower Redway do not exist in isolation. Their roots run under property lines and through the root systems of neighboring trees, and the removal of one can weaken others, they believe. If this case sets a precedent — if a Cal Fire hazard exemption can sidestep the Q Zone protections many believed were ironclad — then, they worry, every old-growth redwood in Lower Redway is potentially at risk. In a neighborhood of modest homes surrounded by centuries-old timber worth far more than the structures beneath them, some fear what comes next if the county cannot or will not enforce its own ordinance.

For some standing on that road Thursday, this issue is more than ideological, it’s personal. They live under these trees too.

“There’s a lot of undervalued homes in here with overvalued redwoods,” said John, a neighbor who says he has spent $30,000 managing a large redwood over his own house over the past 20 years. He says his home struck by falling limbs five or six times. “Gyppo loggers will view this neighborhood and come in and try to log other parcels that they should not. If the county does not begin to enforce its own rules and find the spine to do that, you’re going to see the whole character of this neighborhood change.”

John said he understood the fear of falling limbs. He lives with it. But the Q Zone exists precisely for this, he said. “If the tree is not going to fall and you’re worried about limbs hitting your house, then you cut the limbs off. That’s why this is such a travesty.”

Linda Sutton, an elder who lives nearby, said the concern extends beyond any single property. “Tree roots do not just stop at the property line; they need other roots for stability and support. And that’s kind of what maintains the redwoods, that they can have these extensive root systems that support each other,” she said. “When you start cutting redwoods, you’re basically endangering other redwoods in this neighborhood. So, it’s not just this, ‘Well, it’s my property. I can do whatever I want.’ We’re all interconnected.”

The pregnant woman and the young children holding signs on Thursday are the next generation inheriting whatever is decided here. Only about 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains. What happens in Lower Redway — whether the Q Zone holds, whether a Cal Fire hazard exemption can render it meaningless, and where the line falls between protecting an ancient grove and protecting the people living under it — will shape what that number looks like in this neighborhood for generations to come.

Late in the afternoon, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol arrived on scene. Officers confirmed protesters were free to remain on the public road. CHP Sgt. Barnwell was overheard saying it did not appear safe to fall the tree with people and traffic nearby. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, who was present for much of the afternoon, relayed to protestors that Ford said the road could not be closed without an encroachment permit. The planning department is closed Friday. Monday is the earliest the permit could be filed.

The news of the temporary reprieve elicited shouts of jubilation. Maloney told the crowd that small gatherings of people can still make a difference.

The chainsaw is quiet for now.

Disclosure: As a community member in the area, this reporter has personal connections to people on both sides of this dispute.