On 8/11/2025, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) leaders from around Humboldt County came together to discuss the latest updates, training opportunities, and resources available for CERT teams in the area. Linda Nellist, Humboldt Bay Fire CERT Lead Instructor, started the participants off with a round of introductions and ice breakers, getting the CERT leaders to become more familiar with one another before starting off the discussions.
CERT is a program that was first developed and implemented by the Los Angeles City Fire Department in 1985. The Whittier Narrows earthquake in 1987 further underscored the area-wide threat of a major disaster in California, and confirmed the need for training civilians to meet their immediate needs. CERT then became a national program in 1993. Now, there are CERT teams in all 50 states, including many Tribal nations and U.S. Territories. Each is unique to its community and essential to building a culture of preparedness in the United States. Overall, there are more than 3,200 local CERT teams, and more than 600,000 people have trained since CERT became a national program.
In Humboldt County, we have 13 CERT teams, serving Arcata, Blue Lake Fire, Bridgeville, Ferndale, Hoopa, Eureka, CalPoly Humboldt, McKinleyville, Shelter Cove, Trinidad, and Blue Lake Rancheria CERT. Each CERT team consists of local individuals within each of these communities who decided to learn more about disaster preparedness, and to become more disaster-resilient.
Originally Published: 8/30/2025