The Past, Present, and Future of Wildfires in the West
If you were fortunate enough to live under a rock, perhaps you missed news of the two massive fires that struck the Los Angeles area in January. The Eaton Fire destroyed over 9,000 structures, burned 14,021 acres, and killed 18 people; the Palisades Fire was equally destructive. It wiped out 6,837 structures across 23,448 acres and left 12 people dead.
With all the news in our political and economic world, those not directly impacted can’t be blamed for moving on from the horrific loss of lives, homes, and livelihoods a few hundred miles away. But history tells us this is a mistake. Here in the Truckee/Tahoe area, we have always been exposed to the danger of catastrophic fire and conflagration.
History of Fire Suppression
In the 1800s and for centuries before, fire was a normal event in the Sierra forests caused by natural occurrences such as lightning, as well as from Native American forest management practices. These fires were usually small and slow-burning and rarely caused human death or property destruction because there were only minor, usually nomadic populations and few permanent structures. This began to change as immigrants from Europe and elsewhere began to move west. With this expansion, it was common for fires to level entire towns because of construction methods of the time.
Our predominantly pine and fir forests provided lumber quickly and cheaply. Bricks and stonemasons were not common, thus most buildings were built of wood. Heating, cooking, and light were provided by open flame and were a frequent cause of fires. The lack of building codes and fire departments, and the proximity of wood buildings, meant fires moved quickly from building to building, often consuming city blocks or entire towns.
In July 1868, 50 buildings in what is now Commercial Row in Truckee burned in an accidental fire. This happened somewhat routinely until taxes were finally gathered for a steam-powered fire wagon purchased from nearby Virginia City and local volunteers worked to attack fires before they could grow in size. This and the use of the Central Pacific Railroad’s fire train Samson kept most fires contained to just a few city blocks or less until Truckee established the Truckee Fire Protection District in 1894.
In 1910, the Big Burn Fire or Big Blowup scorched over 3 million acres and killed 85 people in Idaho and Montana. Erratic, gusty, 70-mile-per hour winds drove the fire through small towns, and embers were carried over 50 miles from the head of the blaze. This fire led the U.S. Forest Service to become a firefighting agency, and in 1935 USFS leadership instituted the 10 a.m. policy, which dictated that any fire spotted must be controlled by 10 a.m. the following morning.
Tahoe was not exempt from large, damaging fires, though the year-round population was relatively small until after World War II. In 1937, a suspicious fire destroyed the Tahoe Mercantile, the U.S. Post Office, and the Women’s Club along with some remaining railroad buildings and the commercial wharf in the Commons Beach area of Tahoe City. The lone fire engine responded from the Truckee Ranger station and, fortunately, the lack of wind kept the fire from taking the entire town.
As motor-driven fire engines and organized fire departments and districts became more common, conflagrations became less so. Rapid reporting and volunteer fire response kept most structure fires to the building or area of origin, and wildland fires were kept out of towns.
In the early 1970s, however, wildland fires raged in Southern California, which resulted in many deaths, loss of homes, and serious property and forest loss. Fire agencies and the Forest Service joined forces and implemented a system of mutual aid so fire departments could more easily communicate and use common language, radios, and equipment to assist each other to combat these wind-driven fires. The California Incident Command System (ICS) became the standard throughout the west and was later adopted by the federal government as the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
Consequences
Later into the 20th century, it became obvious that by banning fire from federal forests and adjoining lands, we had created a monster. The western forests of massive pines with wide spaces of low shrubs between them described by John Muir were gone, clearcut for the mines and towns of the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s through the 1900s.
The fast-growing and beetle-prone white firs, one of the species that grew back after the pines were cut, are now dying off. Bark beetle attacks have stressed trees, such as those weakened by drought. Excessive white fir die-off has impacted other species as well, and the large swaths of dead and dying fir and pine trees in the Basin are a critical problem. Sierra tree mortality spiked to an unprecedented level beginning in 2016 and has continued.
The Present
A wind-driven fire that has moved from the ground into the canopy, or treetops, referred to by firefighters as a crown fire, can be impossible to stop until it runs out of fuel. Man-made fuel breaks or areas of barren rock are often the only way firefighters can get the upper hand. Many fires are only contained when the weather changes, the wind calms down, or rain or snow finally slows progress.
The Donner Ridge Fire in 1960 raged from what is now the Tahoe Donner community almost into Reno, burning over 45,000 acres and causing power outages in Reno that lasted weeks. Few homes were destroyed because there were almost none there. Today, there are thousands of homes and businesses in that fire’s footprint.
In June of 2007, conflagration returned to Lake Tahoe in the form of the Angora Fire in El Dorado County. An illegal campfire was whipped by winds of over 30 miles per hour, driving embers into communities and destroying 254 structures. Thankfully, no lives were lost.
In 2021, South Lake Tahoe and Meyers were hit hard by the Caldor Fire, which burned 221,835 acres and 1,005 structures. It would have become a catastrophic inferno with a potentially great loss of life but for the fact that it ran into a forest that had been a treatment area in which mechanical thinning and low intensity prescribed burns had reduced fuels. When a crown or tree canopy fire hits a treated area, it stumbles and slows, dropping to the ground where firefighters, dozers, and aircraft can attack it and contain it.
The Caldor Fire required the sudden evacuation of over 20,000 people from South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, and other towns and subdivisions in the Tahoe Basin. Though slow and filled with mishaps, the people made it out as firefighters held the blaze at the treatment areas. Earlier in the fire, the people of Grizzly Flats, just 62 miles from Meyers, had not been as fortunate. Though a treatment plan by the Forest Service for the immediate area had been in the works for over a decade, it was never completed, due in part to objections from the John Muir Project and budget issues. Over 400 of the 600 homes and businesses in town were destroyed.
Firefighters try to direct such fires away from populated areas, but when the fire becomes deadly, more effort is directed at saving lives. This was the case with the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, that left 85 dead, 153,336 acres burned, and 18,804 structures destroyed; Lahaina, Hawaii, in 2023 (2,170 acres burned and over 2,200 structures consumed with 102 dead); and Pacific Palisades and Altadena, among so many others, where entire blocks of homes were burning and the wind was blowing at 90 miles per hour.
Water & Warnings
Much was made by the media and others of the lack of water from hydrants during the fires in the LA area. It appears that the water agency had its largest water reservoir offline for repair during those incidents. There was limited capacity in tanks that were simply run dry by the firefight and by the thousands of broken water lines running open in homes damaged by fire.
In our area, as in most towns and cities, water systems are designed to provide safe drinking water and water for fire protection. The same clean, treated water that comes from your tap is the water piped to fire hydrants that fire engines use to combat a house or structure fire. The systems were never designed for the sudden, huge-volume demand of dozens or even hundreds of fire engines, fire sprinkler systems, and garden hoses attempting to hold back a fire driven by hurricane-force winds in a neighborhood of closely-built wooden homes.
In addition, much of Tahoe/Truckee’s water systems were developed over time from small, often spring-fed systems intended to supply a few vacation cabins with drinking water. Though some of these systems have been taken over by local municipal water companies, upgrades to larger underground pipes and large capacity tanks are still taking place, and there remain many private water companies that are not required to upgrade.
North Tahoe Fire Protection District Chief Steve Leighton, a veteran of over 30 years of firefighting in the Sierra, is confident in the local municipal water companies’ ability to provide water to fight structure fires for which the water systems were designed. “Though the fire district does not own the hydrants, we have a great working relationship with the public utility districts to ensure the 2,000-plus hydrants in our district are in service,” he said.
Our local fire agencies consistently train together to attack large, wind-driven fires. The engines they use are capable of drafting water for their on-board tanks from lakes or other water sources, and many local fire districts also have large capacity water tender trucks that respond to strategic locations to provide firefighting water shuttles if no fire hydrants are available.
A concern that may have cost Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley her job after the Palisades and Eaton fires was the lack of additional Red Flag Warning staffing. While an investigation is ongoing, it seems that up to 1,000 firefighters going off duty that might have been kept on the job were not, though wind gusts were predicted to be close to 100 miles per hour.
Chief Steve Leighton says his district, as well as CalFire and most of the neighboring districts, have a policy to increase staffing during Red Flag Warnings and other predicted weather emergencies. “My ongoing concerns are budgeting for sufficient firefighter staffing, and also enough prevention staff to inspect and reinspect for compliance with defensible space regulations,” he said. “Another concern is that there is little or no funding for residents that are unable to physically perform defensible space work and cannot afford to have that work done.”
Evacuations
State and county agencies will advise when it’s time to evacuate during a dangerous fire. Our responsibility is to heed that advice. There are two evacuation levels. An evacuation warning is issued when a fire is approaching and/or conditions are worsening. That is your cue to leave. This gives you and your family time to gather pets and a few valuables, documents, and your go bag so you can leave in a calm, orderly manner.
Agencies may later issue an evacuation order that might include law enforcement patrolling neighborhoods to compel people to head out. This is potentially chaotic, as it was in South Shore during the Caldor Fire. To see how fellow drivers might behave during an evacuation with a fire in sight and smoke filling the air, watch a video of the Tunnel Fire evacuation of the Oakland Hills in 1991. Chaos and panic led to collisions and blocked escape routes. Twenty-five people were killed, and almost 800 homes and businesses in Oakland were destroyed.
Take Action
We once had healthy western forests where trees were widely spaced, and undergrowth was controlled so fires stayed low and slow. Can we get there again? The answer is yes, but it will be an investment. A tiny percentage of tax money would enable the Forest Service and the states to perform thinning projects in our national and state forests, clearing undergrowth and removing dead and dying trees. The number of forestry jobs created could revitalize communities and offer opportunities that were once a staple in western mill towns.
Now, when rapid, aggressive, and expensive action is needed to restore our forests, we have competing agencies and regulations fighting over what and how and who pays for forest management. Thinning projects take years to obtain permits for and are often stopped by lawsuits before they can start.
Forests that have been thinned to a more natural balance can then be maintained over decades using prescribed fire as recommended by scientists, foresters, and Native Americans.
The potential savings far outweigh the investment. We currently allow mega wildland fires to take lives, destroy towns, wreck businesses, and prevent home ownership by enabling insurance companies to refuse to insure homes. CalFire says it’s not if, but when, a large wildland fire will strike anywhere in the state. The various agencies and environmental groups will then have only blackened stumps and smoking foundations to argue over.
The decision is ours. You can make your choice heard by telling your elected leaders how to spend our tax dollars to make our communities safer from wildfires.
Fire agencies recommend that you:
1. Do your defensible space work and home hardening. Many homes are destroyed because of embers, which can travel great distances.
2. Understand what a Red Flag Warning is and how to find out if one is issued for today or tomorrow. It indicates a high risk of wildfire due to a combination of warm temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds. This warning from the National Weather Service is designed to tell you and fire agencies when conditions are favorable for a fire to get out of control. Our area usually has at least 6 to 10 Red Flag days per year, mostly, but not always, between May and December. The majority of conflagrations has occurred on Red Flag days.
3. Sign up for Placer Alert (Placer County), CodeRED (Nevada County, Town of Truckee), RAVE (El Dorado County, Washoe County), or whatever early warning system your county uses to notify you of an emergency using your smart phone. If you are a second homeowner, it’s best to install the app for each county in which you own a home.
3. Get the Watch Duty app to enable notifications of wildland fires in your area.
4. Be prepared to evacuate so it’s not a panicked, chaotic run-around when, not if, you have to go. Leave at issuance of the warning, don’t wait for the order.
4. Phone and write your federal representatives and demand that they spend some of our tax dollars to return western forests to a more natural state.
