Verarmde steden in de schaduw van Mount Shasta. Rustieke Gold Rush-steden in de uitlopers van de Sierra Nevada. Resortgemeenschappen met hoge dollars aan de oevers van Lake Tahoe. Ritzy buitenwijken van Los Angeles County.

Ze zouden allemaal het volgende paradijs kunnen zijn.

Een McClatchy-analyse onthult meer dan 350, 000 Californiërs wonen in dorpen en steden die bijna volledig binnen "zeer hoge brandgevaarlijke zones" liggen - de aanduiding van Cal Fire voor plaatsen die zeer kwetsbaar zijn voor verwoestende bosbranden. Deze aanduidingen zijn griezelig voorspellend gebleken voor enkele van de meest destructieve bosbranden van de staat in de afgelopen jaren, inclusief het kampvuur, de slechtste in de geschiedenis van de staat.

Bijna heel Paradise is felrood gekleurd op de kaart van Cal Fire - praktisch de hele stad liep ernstig gevaar voordat het kampvuur afgelopen november woedde, het merendeel van de huizen op zijn pad verbranden en 85 mensen doden.

Malibu, waar de Woolsey Fire vorig jaar meer dan 400 huizen verbrandde, valt ook binnen zeer hoge gevarenzones. Net als het kleine stadje Cobb in Lake County, waarvan een groot deel werd verwoest door de Valley Fire in 2015.

"Er zijn veel paradijzen daarbuiten, " zei Max Moritz, een brandspecialist bij UC Santa Barbara.

Alles verteld, meer dan 2,7 miljoen Californiërs leven in zeer hoge brandgevaarlijke zones, van trailers op stille onverharde wegen in het bos tot herenhuizen in de grootste steden van de staat, volgens de analyse, die is gebaseerd op tellingsgegevens op blokniveau van 2010. Het California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection zegt dat zijn kaarten plaatsen tonen waar bosbranden waarschijnlijk extreem zijn vanwege factoren zoals vegetatie en topografie.

De kaarten zijn niet perfect in hun vermogen om te voorspellen waar een brand verwoestend zal zijn. Bijvoorbeeld, de Coffey Park-buurt van Santa Rosa ligt niet in een zeer gevaarlijke zone, maar krachtige wind duwde de Tubbs Fire in dat deel van de stad, grotendeels egaliseren van de wijk in oktober 2017.

Coffey Park werd gebouwd "zonder rekening te houden met vuur, " zei Chris Dicus, een bosbouw- en brandexpert bij Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. "Er was vuur in de bergen - er was geen overweging dat het vuur (snelweg) 101 zou oversteken."

Cal Fire maakt nieuwe kaarten voor brandgevaar, klaar over een jaar of zo, waarin regionale windpatronen en andere klimaatfactoren worden verwerkt. Ondertussen, experts zeggen dat de huidige kaarten, ongeveer tien jaar geleden opgericht, nog steeds een belangrijke gids om te voorspellen waar bosbranden de meeste schade kunnen aanrichten, op dezelfde manier markeren overstromingsvlaktekaarten gebieden die het hardst kunnen worden getroffen tijdens zware stormen.

De door McClatchy geïdentificeerde risicogemeenschappen zouden ook als uitgangspunt moeten dienen voor het prioriteren van hoe Californië geld moet uitgeven aan renovaties en andere brandveiligheidsprogramma's, zei Moritz.

De ultramoderne bouwvoorschriften van Californië helpen huizen te beschermen tegen bosbranden in de meest kwetsbare gebieden, deskundigen zeggen. Maar de codes gelden alleen voor nieuwbouw. Een wetsvoorstel ingediend door raadslid Jim Wood zou geld opleveren om Californiërs te helpen bij het renoveren van oudere huizen.

"Dit zal een lange weg zijn naar deze verschillende gemeenten (om te laten zien) dat ze financiering verdienen, ' zei Moritz.

McClatchy identificeerde meer dan 75 dorpen en steden met een bevolking van meer dan 1. 000 waar, zoals het paradijs, ten minste 90 procent van de bewoners woont in de Cal Fire-zones met een zeer hoog brandgevaar.

Hier zijn momentopnamen van 10, en de unieke uitdagingen waarmee ze worden geconfronteerd:

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Shingletown:een miniatuurparadijs

Bevolking (2010)-2, 283 ' In zeer hoge brandgevaarlijke zone-2, 283

Shingletown is minder dan een tiende zo groot als Paradise, maar brengt waarschijnlijk net zoveel risico met zich mee.

zoals het paradijs, de gemeenschap zonder rechtspersoonlijkheid zit bovenop een bergkam, en is bedekt met hoge bomen en dikke struiken - ingrediënten voor een grote bosbrand. Shingletown heette oorspronkelijk Shingle Camp, voor de arbeiders die daklamellen van hout sneden om mijnwerkers te bevoorraden tijdens het Gold Rush-tijdperk.

"We laten bomen groeien alsof niemand hier iets aan heeft, " zei Tom Twist, een lid van de Shingletown Fire Safe Council, een vrijwilligersorganisatie. Twist, die sinds de jaren 70 af en toe in de gemeenschap heeft gewoond, zei dat als het warm weer is, hij zijn eigendom zal bewandelen, het optrekken van zaailingen in een bijna vergeefse poging om potentiële brandstoffen te elimineren.

"Ik zal 20 of 30 zaailingen per dag uit de grond trekken, "zei hij. "Het is bijna alsof ik daarheen loop, er zijn er 20 of 30. Als ik terugloop, er zijn nog eens 20 of 30."

Net als het paradijs, ontsnappen aan de nok in een snel voortschrijdend vuur zou niet gemakkelijk zijn; De hoofdweg van Shingletown is kronkelig, smalle snelweg 44. En, zoals in het paradijs, de aanwezigheid van een oudere bevolking zou de evacuatie bemoeilijken; De mediane leeftijd van Shingletown is 61, volgens volkstellingscijfers.

Het is geen wonder dat toen gouverneur Gavin Newsom Cal Fire opdracht gaf een lijst met dringende brandveiligheidsprojecten te ontwikkelen, een plan om 1 te trimmen 124 acres vegetatie langs Highway 44 kwam als topprioriteit uit 35 projecten in de staat.

De lokale bevolking zegt blij te zijn dat de staat aandacht schenkt aan een probleem dat ze maar al te goed kennen. De gemeenschap moest evacueren toen de Ponderosa-brand, begonnen door een blikseminslag, getroffen in 2012. Het vuur brandde 27, 676 acres - 43 vierkante mijlen - en 52 huizen in de buurt in brand gestoken.

"We zijn ons terdege bewust van de gevaren hier, ' zei Twist.

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Nevada City:pittoresk en riskant

Bevolking (2010)-3, 068 ' In zeer hoge brandgevaarlijke zone-3, 064

Sinds het kampvuur, Vicky Guyette heeft het stuk ongeschoren bos van een hectare achter het huis uit het Victoriaanse tijdperk van haar moeder in Nevada City gezien als meer dan alleen maar een onaantrekkelijke overlast.

Nutsvoorzieningen, de borstel is onheilspellend - een ontstekingsbron die het huis, gebouwd in 1859, waar haar familie vijf generaties lang heeft gewoond, in brand zou kunnen zetten.

Dezelfde angst geldt ook voor de ceders, pijnbomen en struikgewas die de heuvels rond deze uitlopersstad van ongeveer 3 bedekken, 100 mensen, velen van hen wonen of werken in houten gebouwen die dateren uit het Gold Rush-tijdperk.

"Het is heel eng, vooral omdat het zo'n schattig stadje is waar ik mijn hele leven al woon, ' zei Guyette onlangs toen ze door de historische Broad Street van de stad liep, dat eruitziet alsof het uit een foto van een museumexpositie is gevallen.

Stadsambtenaren zijn het erover eens dat de beboste trekkingen, steile hellingen, smalle woonstraten, oude huizen en dichte stedelijke boomkruinen die het karakter van de stad bepalen, maken het ook bijzonder kwetsbaar als er brand uitbreekt.

"Nevada City's grootste risico voor mensenlevens en financiële schade is brand, "Het risicobeperkingsplan van Nevada City luidt.

In de afgelopen decennia, de stad heeft ook een aantal bijna-ongevallen met vuur gehad, inclusief een grote close call.

In 1988, zware wind duwde de 49er Fire door 52 vierkante mijl van het westen van Nevada County, branden 312 gebouwen en tientallen auto's.

"Destijds werd het als een abnormale gebeurtenis beschouwd, "zei Billy Spearing van de Fire Safe Council van Nevada County. "Het was toen niet normaal voor hen."

Nu dergelijke branden het nieuwe normaal worden, Cal Fire is van plan om een ​​1, 802 hectare grote brand in het zuidwesten van Nevada County op terrein dat al een eeuw niet heeft gebrand, het helpen beschermen van zowel Nevada City als de aangrenzende gemeenschap van Grass Valley, thuis voor meer dan 12, 000.

Nevada City is ook begonnen met een online "Goat Fund Me"-campagne om $ 25 op te halen, 000 om boeren in te huren om hun geiten te gebruiken om dicht struikgewas te eten in meer dan 450 hectare groengebied dat eigendom is van de stad.

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, " ze zei.

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, " ze zei.

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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, ze zei, 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 mensen, " she said. "They were predicting the fire to go to 27, 000 hectare, 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, zeiden lokale functionarissen.

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.

in 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. Onlangs, one of Settles' neighbors had to saw off the top of a pine tree because it was too close to a transmission tower, ze zei.

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, smal, poorly signed" roads that make evacuations dangerous.

Thomas Caswell, who's lived for four decades on a hilly, smal, 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.

Nog altijd, 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.

Hij voegde toe, 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.

Nog altijd, Rancho Palos Verdes' hazard mitigation plan lists wildfire as a bigger threat to the city than earthquakes, tsunami's en aardverschuivingen. 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. Bijvoorbeeld, the side streets in Harbison Canyon are narrow. Sommige, 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 rechten voorbehouden.