Californien ræser om at forudsige, hvilken by der kan blive ved med at brænde

Fattige byer i skyggen af ​​Mount Shasta. Rustikke guldfeberbyer ved foden af ​​Sierra Nevada. Resortsamfund med høje dollars ved bredden af ​​Lake Tahoe. Ritzy Los Angeles Countys forstæder.

De kunne alle blive det næste paradis.

En McClatchy-analyse afslører mere end 350, 000 californiere bor i byer, der næsten udelukkende eksisterer inden for "zoner med meget høj brandfare" - Cal Fires betegnelse for steder, der er meget sårbare over for ødelæggende naturbrande. Disse betegnelser har vist sig uhyggeligt forudsigelige om nogle af statens mest ødelæggende naturbrande i de seneste år, inklusive lejrbålet, det værste i statens historie.

Næsten hele Paradise er farvet i lyse rødt på Cal Fires kort - praktisk talt hele byen var i alvorlig fare, før lejrbranden rasede igennem i november sidste år, brænde størstedelen af ​​husene på dens vej og dræbe 85 mennesker.

Malibu, hvor Woolsey Fire brændte mere end 400 hjem sidste år, falder også inden for meget høje farezoner. Ligesom den lille Lake County-by Cobb, hvoraf meget blev ødelagt af Valley Fire i 2015.

"Der er mange paradiser derude, " sagde Max Moritz, en brandspecialist ved UC Santa Barbara.

Alt i alt, mere end 2,7 millioner californiere lever i områder med meget høj brandfare, fra trailere fra stille grusveje i skoven til palæer i statens største byer, ifølge analysen, som er baseret på 2010 blok-niveau folketælling data. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection siger, at deres kort viser steder, hvor skovbrande sandsynligvis vil være ekstreme på grund af faktorer, herunder vegetation og topografi.

Kortene er ikke perfekte i deres evne til at forudsige, hvor en brand vil være ødelæggende. For eksempel, Coffey Park-kvarteret i Santa Rosa er ikke i en særlig høj risikozone, men kraftige vinde skubbede Tubbs-ilden ind i den del af byen, stort set udjævnede kvarteret i oktober 2017.

Coffey Park blev bygget "uden hensyntagen til brand, " sagde Chris Dicus, en skov- og brandekspert hos Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. "Ild var i bjergene - der var ingen overvejelse om, at ild ville krydse (Highway) 101."

Cal Fire laver nye brandfarekort - klar om et år eller deromkring - der vil inkorporere regionale vindmønstre og andre klimafaktorer. I mellemtiden, eksperter siger, at de nuværende kort, skabt for omkring et årti siden, stadig give en vigtig guide til at forudsige, hvor skovbrande kan gøre mest skade, på samme måde fremhæver kort over oversvømmelser områder, der kan blive hårdest ramt under kraftige storme.

De udsatte samfund identificeret af McClatchy bør også tjene som udgangspunkt for at prioritere, hvordan Californien skal bruge penge på eftermontering og andre brandsikkerhedsprogrammer, sagde Moritz.

Californiens avancerede byggeregler hjælper med at beskytte hjem mod naturbrande i de mest sårbare områder, siger eksperter. Men koderne gælder kun for nybyggeri. Et lovforslag fremsat af forsamlingsmedlem Jim Wood ville give kontanter til at hjælpe californiere eftermontering af ældre hjem.

"Dette vil gå langt i retning af disse forskellige kommuner (ved at vise), at de fortjener finansiering, " sagde Moritz.

McClatchy identificerede mere end 75 byer med befolkninger over 1, 000 hvor, som paradis, mindst 90 procent af beboerne bor i Cal Fire "zoner med meget høj brandfare."

Her er snapshots af 10, og de unikke udfordringer, de står over for:

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Shingletown:et miniatureparadis

Befolkning (2010)—2, 283 ' I zone med meget høj brandfare—2, 283

Shingletown er mindre end en tiendedel af Paradisets størrelse, men indebærer sandsynligvis lige så stor risiko.

Ligesom paradis, det ikke-inkorporerede samfund sidder på toppen af ​​en højderyg, og er dækket af høje træer og tyk børste - ingredienser til en større naturbrand. Shingletown hed oprindeligt Shingle Camp, for de arbejdere, der skærer taglister af tømmer for at forsyne minearbejdere under Gold Rush-æraen.

"Vi dyrker træer som ingens forretning heroppe, " sagde Tom Twist, medlem af Shingletown Fire Safe Council, en frivillig organisation. Vride, der har boet i samfundet af og til siden 1970'erne, sagde, at når vejret er varmt, vil han gå sin ejendom, trække frøplanter op i en næsten forgæves indsats for at eliminere potentielle brændstoffer.

"Jeg vil trække 20 eller 30 frøplanter om dagen op af jorden, " sagde han. "Det er næsten som når jeg går derover, der er 20 eller 30. Når jeg går tilbage, der er yderligere 20 eller 30."

Ligesom paradis, Det ville ikke være let at undslippe højderyggen i en hurtig brand; Shingletowns hovedtræk er snoede, smalle motorvej 44. Og, som i paradis, tilstedeværelsen af ​​en ældre befolkning ville gøre evakuering vanskeligere; Shingletowns medianalder er 61, ifølge folketællingstal.

Det er ikke underligt, at da guvernør Gavin Newsom beordrede Cal Fire til at udvikle en liste over presserende brandsikkerhedsprojekter, en plan om at trimme 1, 124 hektar vegetation langs Highway 44 kom op som topprioritet ud af 35 projekter rundt om i staten.

Lokalbefolkningen siger, at de er glade for, at staten er opmærksom på et problem, de kender alt for godt. Samfundet måtte evakuere, da Ponderosa-branden, startede med et lynnedslag, ramt i 2012. Ilden brændte 27, 676 acres - 43 kvadratkilometer - og brændte 52 hjem i nærheden.

"Vi er meget opmærksomme på farerne heroppe, " sagde Twist.

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Nevada City:malerisk og risikabelt

Befolkning (2010)—3, 068 'I zone med meget høj brandfare - 3, 064

Siden lejrbranden, Vicky Guyette har set på den en hektar store plet af uklippede børste bag sin mors hjem i victoriansk tid i Nevada City som mere end blot en uattraktiv gene.

Nu, børsten er ildevarslende - en antændelseskilde, der kunne brænde det hjem, der blev bygget i 1859, som hendes familie har boet i i fem generationer.

Den samme angst gælder også for cedrene, fyrretræer og børster, der dækker bakkerne omkring denne by ved foden af ​​omkring 3, 100 personer, mange af dem bor eller arbejder i træbygninger, der går tilbage til guldfeberens æra.

"Det er meget skræmmende, især da det er sådan en sød lille by, jeg har boet i hele mit liv, " sagde Guyette for nylig, da hun gik ned ad byens historiske Broad Street, hvilket ser ud som om det faldt ud af et foto fra en museumsudstilling.

Byens embedsmænd er enige om, at de skovklædte tegner, stejle bjergskråninger, smalle boliggader, gamle hjem og tyk bytransport, der definerer byens karakter, gør det også særligt udsat, hvis en brand brænder igennem.

"Nevada Citys største enkeltstående risiko for menneskeliv og økonomiske tab er brand, "Nevada Citys plan for farebegrænsning lyder.

I de seneste årtier har byen har også haft nogle næsten uheld med ild, inklusive et større lukkeopkald.

I 1988, kraftige vinde skubbede 49er Fire gennem 52 kvadratkilometer af det vestlige Nevada County, afbrænding af 312 bygninger og snesevis af biler.

"På det tidspunkt blev det betragtet som en unormal begivenhed, " sagde Billy Spearing fra Fire Safe Council i Nevada County. "Det var ikke normalt for dem dengang."

Med sådanne brande bliver det nye normale, Cal Fire planlægger at skære en 1, 802 hektar stor brandpause i det sydvestlige Nevada County i terræn, der ikke har brændt i et århundrede, hjælper med at beskytte både Nevada City og det tilstødende samfund i Grass Valley, hjem til mere end 12, 000.

Nevada City indledte også en online "Goat Fund Me"-kampagne for at rejse $25, 000 til at hyre bønder til at bruge deres geder til at spise tæt børste i mere end 450 acres af byejet grønt bælte.

The goats recently chewed a swath through Pioneer Park near Margaret Rodda's Victorian home, which sits on a steep draw above a creek. But she's still worried.

"All it takes is a drunk with a cigarette, " hun sagde.

The goats inspired Guyette. She said she might spend the $500 to put a herder's goats to work on the thorny thicket of blackberries behind her mother's house.

"We need to get rid of them, " hun sagde.

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Colfax:Fire is on everyone's minds

Population (2010)—1, 963 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone —1, 963

On his first full day in office, Newsom visited the Cal Fire station in Colfax to announce new initiatives on wildfire safety. As he spoke to reporters, surrounded by first responders, he was standing in a city that could burn any summer.

"The people who live here have a true understanding, " said Colfax City Manager Wes Heathcock. "It's always on the back of people's minds, especially with the most recent fires, the Camp Fire. We have a similar makeup here."

At night in the summer, Aimee Costa, who lives on a hill above the elementary school, sometimes keeps her window open, the better to hear ominous sounds.

"You're laying in bed . listening for that lick, that smack, that pop sound, " Costa said, describing the sound flames would make if they were chewing pine needles, brush and leaves.

A former supply hub for gold mining camps, Colfax sits a few miles from the edge of the Tahoe National Forest in the lower-elevation Sierra. It straddles Interstate 80 and serves as the last major stop between the Sacramento metropolitan area and the Lake Tahoe region. Horses graze beside deer on large ranchettes in the rugged brushy canyons along the outskirts of the city.

The terrain poses a major fire risk.

In July 2015, the Lowell Fire erupted near Colfax and chewed up thousands of acres along the north side of the freeway, forcing evacuations in adjacent Nevada County. In the years since, Heathcock said the city has been working with state officials on "fuelbreak" projects, including a spot near the high school and elementary school, which has been eyed as an evacuation site.

Gene Mapa, who lived in Paradise and escaped the Camp Fire with some family photographs—and nothing else—has relocated to Colfax, where he already owned a second home. But he knows he hasn't escaped the fire risk; his property just outside the city limits would be threatened by a windy firestorm like the one that engulfed Paradise.

"With that wind, there would be no stopping it anywhere, " Mapa said.

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Kings Beach:Tourists seek fun, bring fire danger

Population (2010)—3, 796 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone —3, 796

Situated on the pristine north shore of Lake Tahoe, Kings Beach is one of the most heavily visited vacation spots in Northern California.

That's a big part of the problem.

Because so much of the population comes and goes, it becomes harder to get people to treat wildfire risk with the respect it deserves, said Erin Holland, a spokeswoman for the North Tahoe Fire Protection District. One of the district's six stations is in Kings Beach.

"It is definitely a challenge because we have so many homes that are vacation homes, " she said. "It's really a challenge to educate those visitors . They want to have a camp fire."

Tahoe's vulnerability to major fires was brought home dramatically in recent years. The Angora Fire in 2007, while it was confined to the south shore area, left physical and emotional scars on the entire basin after burning through 3, 100 acres.

Holland said getting the region's property owners and visitors to observe "defensible space" regulations is particularly difficult. Those rules call for clearing brush 100 feet around buildings and include stricter rules regarding vegetation immediately adjacent to structures.

Violators can be subject to citations, but "the goal is to really educate people, to get people complying, " Holland said. "We go the education route rather than the citation route."

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Pollock Pines:Do the transplants get it?

Population (2010)—6, 877 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—6, 533

Just off Highway 50, a few miles from the tourist haven of Apple Hill, Pollock Pines lures transplants from coastal California, mainly retirees drawn to the lovely stands of trees in the foothill community at the edge of the Eldorado National Forest.

Heather Campbell only wishes the newbies had a better understanding of what all that timber represents.

Campbell, a retired U.S. Forest Service employee who's lived in Pollock Pines since the 1990s, is the head of the Pollock Pines-Camino Fire Safe Council, a volunteer group.

In the past few years her organization has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly from the state's "cap and trade" carbon trading program, to trim vegetation on the ridgeline south of Highway 50.

That's all well and good, hun sagde, but more needs to be done. And the people of Pollock Pines, including the newcomers, have to realize what's at stake.

"Here, everybody allows all the saplings and brush to grow and they don't weed it out, " she said. "All these roads are incredibly dangerous, when it's so easy to take out pruners. Take out your pruners!"

She said memories are still vivid of the Sand Fire in 2014. That fire burned 4, 200 acres and 20 homes and came dangerously close to forcing a major evacuation in Pollock Pines and surrounding communities.

"They were going to evacuate 9, 000 mennesker, " she said. "They were predicting the fire to go to 27, 000 acres, instead of the 4, 000 they stopped it at."

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Arnold:Trees are falling in Big Trees country

Population (2010)—3, 843 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—3, 843

In the community that serves as gateway to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, residents didn't always applaud when officials began mapping plans to thin dense stands of trees to reduce fire risk.

"Arnold resisted this for a long time because people love their trees, " said Steve Wilensky, a former Calaveras County supervisor who works with nonprofits to improve fire safety in the Sierra.

After years of protests, Arnold's residents got a major wake-up call in 2015. The Butte Fire, caused by power lines, took out 549 homes in nearby communities. Two people died.

"If the weather hadn't changed, they'd be gone, " Wilensky said of Arnold. "You've got a real parallel with Paradise in some ways . It's a place that is really highly threatened."

Arnold sits on a ridge, surrounded by a dense forest of drought- and beetle-killed trees. Powerful wind gusts can funnel fire up rugged brushy canyons.

A key difference between Paradise and Arnold is that as many as 45 percent of the dwellings are vacation homes, which can sometimes make it a challenge to get out-of-town homeowners to do brush clearing, sagde lokale embedsmænd.

Wilensky said momentum to reduce fire risk has built since the Butte Fire. More than $15 million in state and federal funds have gone to thinning dangerous overgrowth in the region, Wilensky said.

One project includes using bulldozer lines that were cut during the Butte Fire to expand a fire break that stretches to town.

"Arnold is the anchor end of this project, " Wilensky said.

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Wofford Heights:Apathy in a danger zone?

Population (2010)—2, 201 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—2, 147

The same powerful desert gusts that attract wind surfers to Kern County's Lake Isabella make the lakeside community of Wofford Heights particularly at risk for wildfire. So does the adjacent Sequoia National Forest, which has been plagued by drought and tree-killing beetles.

Yet some feel that the region isn't doing nearly enough to combat the threat.

"We could do a hell of a lot more than we're doing, " said Judy Hyatt, who lived in the area for 15 years and served as president of the region's fire safe council. The volunteer group disbanded in recent years from what she and others described as a lack of interest.

I 2016 the Lake Isabella region suffered through the Erskine and Cedar fires, which burned more than 77, 000 acres and more than 300 structures. An elderly couple was killed when they were trapped by the Erskine Fire.

According to census figures, the median age of those living in Wofford Heights is 62, and many live in places with poor escape routes.

"Some of those mobiles up there, honest to God, I think they've dropped them out of the sky, " Hyatt said. "The roads are so narrow, and it really just presents an obstacle and the only way to really get to it is by air. That is when people start to die."

Hyatt said the loss of the nonprofit Kern River Fire Safe Council she once headed doesn't bode well for the community. She said the council organized wood-chipping drives to encourage residents to remove wood debris and sought grants for fuel breaks and other thinning projects.

She said too many locals have grown complacent.

"Fire prevention is a nebulous thing, " she said. "It's hard to quantify, until there's a damned fire that takes out everything."

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La Cañada Flintridge:Is aggressive fire prevention enough?

Population (2010)—20, 048 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—20, 048

Carol Settles and her family evacuated their home in La Cañada Flintridge during the Station Fire in 2009. But she isn't terribly worried about a repeat performance—even though her home is on a dead-end street below a brushy hillside of the Angeles National Forest. Large electrical transmission lines run along the wooded draw behind her home.

"We've never seen a spark, " Settles said, referring to the power lines. "We've never seen any of that."

Best-known as home to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the outskirts of Pasadena, the upper middle-class city has an aggressive fire-prevention program. The Los Angeles County fire department checks properties in Settles' area once a year to make sure vegetation has been cleared and hazardous landscaping hasn't been planted.

Fines can be issued for non-compliance. For nylig, one of Settles' neighbors had to saw off the top of a pine tree because it was too close to a transmission tower, hun sagde.

Los Angeles County's assistant fire chief, J. Lopez, said La Cañada Flintridge has embraced rigorous fire-safety standards, which include annual landscaping inspections and stringent fire-safe building codes, even for large home remodels. Lopez said La Cañada Flintridge also chose to place the entire city inside a high fire hazard zone, going beyond the recommendation of Cal Fire. That decision translates into citywide enforcement of its fire-resilient building codes.

"That's a very progressive way to look at it, " Lopez said.

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But since 2008, on average only about a dozen new homes have been built in La Cañada Flintridge each year, meaning most of the housing stock was built before the rigorous fire standards were in place.

The city's hazard mitigation plan notes many of those older homes still have "combustible roofing, open eaves, combustible siding, " and they're on "steep, narrow, poorly signed" roads that make evacuations dangerous.

Thomas Caswell, who's lived for four decades on a hilly, narrow, dead-end street not far from city hall, said he knows the greenbelt behind his house where he watches possums, birds and other wildlife also makes the community vulnerable to fire. It's why he says he didn't mind paying when the city told him he needed to hire a tree service to remove dying trees in his front yard.

Stadig, he knows such efforts probably wouldn't do much good if the Santa Ana winds pushed a fire into the city. Fire officials said that La Cañada Flintridge could have burned in the Station Fire if the Santa Ana winds hadn't stopped blowing. The fire burned 89 homes in outlying communities and 160, 577 acres of forested lands, the largest fire by land mass in Los Angeles County history.

"Once it comes down the hill, " Caswell said, "nobody is going to be safe."

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Rancho Palos Verdes:Few fears in an affluent suburb

Population (2010)—41, 803 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—40, 550

Rancho Palos Verdes holds a dubious honor:It's the most populated city in California to have 90 percent or more of its population living within a "very high fire hazard severity zone." But few residents seem to think their suburb is in the same league as Malibu, where hundreds of homes burned last fall just up the Los Angeles County coastline.

"It's not like living in Malibu, definitely, " said Gregory Lash as he strolled through a public access walkway in the Trump National Golf Club with his wife, Vivian, on the way to an oceanside park where a pod of dolphins and whales were breaching.

Han tilføjede, moments later:"Hope that's not naive."

City officials say it's not.

"This being a coastal community, we don't get the type of brush and that kind of fire behavior that you might get in somewhere like Paradise, " said Scott Hale, an assistant fire chief for Los Angeles County. The county leads firefighting efforts on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, whose four affluent communities all fall inside a high fire severity zone.

Locals point out that over the years, the firefighters at the five stations on the peninsula have quickly knocked down the relatively small fires that popped up.

Stadig, Rancho Palos Verdes' hazard mitigation plan lists wildfire as a bigger threat to the city than earthquakes, tsunamier og jordskred. Powerful winds that blow from the coast could funnel a fire up the greenbelts that cut through the peninsula's neighborhoods, many of which have opulent homes perched above canyons.

Much of that open space has been preserved by the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, which manages more than 1, 600 acres of land in and around the city. Residents such as Lash love the 42 miles of trails on conservancy lands, but all that undeveloped acreage could ignite, said Gabriella Yap, deputy city manager.

"You're trying to preserve that, but it also comes with fire risk, " Yap said.

The city's staff supports Southern California Edison's plans to trim vegetation from under the lines that run through some of the open space to reduce fire threats, but the land conservancy is bristling at the loss of native habitats.

"The environmental impact of that is really significant, " said Adrienne Mohan, the conservancy's executive director.

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Harbison Canyon:Will it burn a third time?

Population (2010)—3, 841 ' In Very High Hazard Fire Severity Zone—3, 841

Every 30 years or so, a massive fire blows through Harbison Canyon, 30 miles northeast of San Diego.

The 1970 Laguna Fire destroyed much of the unincorporated town that sits inside the canyon and shares its name. Harbison Canyon was rebuilt again after the Cedar Fire burned through in 2003, destroying 287 of the 388 homes.

Rick Halsey of the Chaparral Institute said the canyon is a painful example of how development has been allowed to continue practically unchecked for decades into some of California's most fire-prone places.

"You want to create a geographical hotspot for fire, you couldn't put it in a better place, " said Halsey, whose environmentalist organization was founded to fight calls for clearing hundreds of square miles of wild lands following the Cedar Fire. "It's like a bowling alley for the Santa Ana winds."

That sort of talk makes longtime resident Mary Manning cringe.

She worries that focusing on the canyon's fire risk creates the impression that the community she loves can't be saved from the next catastrophe. She said her community could be made more safe if state and local officials would invest in infrastructure and fire prevention that matched the rates of development she's seen over the years. For eksempel, the side streets in Harbison Canyon are narrow. Nogle, like Manning's, remain unpaved despite decades of building.

"There were five houses, now there are 35, " she said of the street she's lived on since 1975.

Manning notes it was only two years ago that the local fire station became staffed 24 hours a day—14 years after the Cedar Fire. Inside the station, Dave Nissen, the Cal Fire official who oversees firefighting in the area, said there are a number of challenges to fighting a fire in the canyon, including the narrow roads and houses stacked close together.

Nissen said firefighters reduce the risks by inspecting lots every year to make sure they're not overgrown. On that front, Harbison Canyon's residents don't seem to need too much prodding, judging from the roar of chain saws and weed trimmers echoing through the canyon on a recent spring weekday afternoon.

© 2019 The Associated Press. Alle rettigheder forbeholdes.