Why California isn’t safer a year after the Camp Fire
Credit: McClatchy/Sacramento Bee, Producer - Melanie Hogue
The Legislature, galvanized by the Camp Fire and a 2017 wine country disaster that burned 200,000 acres, approved hundreds of millions of dollars this year for new engines and aircraft, more firefighters, remote cameras and improved emergency-alert systems. Story continuesWhile state and federal agencies have scrambled to thin out California’s vast forests, drought and disease left a staggering backlog of 147 million dead trees — tinder waiting to ignite.
“But that’s not actually risk-reduction,” Wara said. “We have not actually reduced the scale of the problem.” The reason? Relatively mild weather. Natasha Stavros, a fire ecologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the late-spring snowfalls kept extra moisture in the ground and made “the fuels less flammable.”“Basically what you saw out there is the moderate weather,” said Capt. Scott McLean, a spokesman for the state’s firefighting agency. “You don’t have that blast furnace we had to deal with in 2017 and 2018 that dried everything out.
But at the current rate, hardening the grid could take a decade. “Do we need to pick up the pace, do we need to accelerate the pace?” he said. “As soon as we get out of the fire season, those are exactly the kinds of things we’ll be looking at.” Just east of Colfax, Cal Fire is wrapping up a fuel break on 850 acres along the North Fork of the American River. The other day about 100 private workers and National Guardsmen were removing Ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and oaks in a steep canyon.
Still, progress comes slowly — about 30 acres a week. The work is the first phase of a multi-year program aimed at treating 4,300 acres. Hundreds of thousands of Californians have lost their homeowners’ insurance in recent years as the industry recoils from more than $20 billion in wildfire losses. Replacement coverage is usually two or three times more expensive. It’s become a crisis as real estate values fall in areas that are already struggling and rely heavily on wealthy transplants moving in.
SB 182, by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, would have prevented local governments from approving new developments in fire areas unless they could show “substantial evidence” of tamping down the risk. But enforcement can be spotty. Cal Fire, which patrols defensible space compliance in much of rural California, struggles to keep up. Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director, said the agency conducted 204,341 inspections in the fiscal year that ended in June — falling short of its goal of 250,000. The 204,341 figure includes some properties inspected more than once.
But many fire professionals say education works best. John Messina, the Paradise fire chief, said the culture of rural California demands a more collaborative approach. “We’ve never had anything like this,” he said, referring to the 85 people killed. “The financial resources are now available to begin this transformation .... We’ve hit some sort of threshold politically and also in the public, and I think we’re destined to keep pushing.”
Hardening of homes works. A McClatchy investigation of the Camp Fire’s behavior found that half of the 350 homes built in 2008 or later — when strict building codes took effect — survived without damage. Only 18 percent of the other 12,100 homes built before 2008 were undamaged. The state dollars disappeared last spring, when the bill reached the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Evan McLaughlin, chief of staff to committee Chairwoman Lorena Gonzalez, said Wood’s proposal hadn’t gone through the necessary give-and-take between the governor’s office and the Legislature’s budget committees.
It’s a gorgeous area, but they’re surrounded by fire debris and the rusted hulks of burnt-up cars. Also plenty of trees.
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