p Cidades empobrecidas à sombra do Monte Shasta. Cidades rústicas da corrida do ouro no sopé da Serra Nevada. Comunidades de resorts com altos preços nas margens do Lago Tahoe. Subúrbios luxuosos do condado de Los Angeles. p Todos eles poderiam ser o próximo paraíso.

p Uma análise de McClatchy revela mais de 350, 000 californianos vivem em vilas e cidades que existem quase inteiramente dentro de "zonas de gravidade de risco de incêndio muito alto" - designação de Cal Fire para locais altamente vulneráveis ​​a incêndios florestais devastadores. Essas designações se mostraram assustadoramente preditivas sobre alguns dos incêndios florestais mais destrutivos do estado nos últimos anos, incluindo a fogueira, o pior da história do estado.

p Quase todo o Paraíso está colorido em vermelho brilhante no mapa de Cal Fire - praticamente toda a cidade estava em grave risco antes do incêndio do acampamento se alastrar em novembro passado, queimando a maioria das casas em seu caminho e matando 85 pessoas.

p Malibu, onde o incêndio de Woolsey queimou mais de 400 casas no ano passado, também cai em zonas de risco muito alto. Assim como a pequena cidade de Cobb no Condado de Lake, grande parte da qual foi destruída pelo Valley Fire em 2015.

p "Há muitos paraísos por aí, "disse Max Moritz, um especialista em incêndio na UC Santa Barbara.

p Tudo dito, mais de 2,7 milhões de californianos vivem em zonas de alto risco de incêndio, de trailers em estradas de terra tranquilas na floresta a mansões nas maiores cidades do estado, de acordo com a análise, que é baseado em dados do censo de nível de bloco de 2010. O Departamento de Silvicultura e Proteção contra Incêndios da Califórnia afirma que seus mapas mostram locais onde os incêndios florestais podem ser extremos devido a fatores que incluem vegetação e topografia.

p Os mapas não são perfeitos em sua capacidade de prever onde um incêndio será destrutivo. Por exemplo, o bairro de Coffey Park em Santa Rosa não está em uma zona de risco muito alto, mas os fortes ventos empurraram o Tubbs Fire para aquela parte da cidade, em grande parte nivelando a vizinhança em outubro de 2017.

p O Coffey Park foi construído "sem consideração pelo fogo, "disse Chris Dicus, especialista em silvicultura e incêndio na Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. "O fogo estava nas montanhas - não havia nenhuma consideração de que o fogo cruzaria (Highway) 101."

p Cal Fire está fazendo novos mapas de risco de incêndio - prontos em mais ou menos um ano - que irão incorporar padrões de vento regionais e outros fatores climáticos. Enquanto isso, especialistas dizem que os mapas atuais, criado há cerca de uma década, ainda fornecem um guia importante para prever onde os incêndios florestais podem causar mais danos, da mesma forma, os mapas de várzea destacam as áreas que podem ser mais atingidas durante tempestades severas.

p As comunidades em risco identificadas por McClatchy também devem servir como um ponto de partida para priorizar como a Califórnia deve gastar dinheiro em retrofits e outros programas de segurança contra incêndio, Disse Moritz.

p Os códigos de construção de última geração da Califórnia ajudam a proteger as casas de incêndios florestais nas áreas mais vulneráveis, especialistas falam. Mas os códigos só se aplicam a novas construções. Um projeto de lei apresentado pelo deputado Jim Wood forneceria dinheiro para ajudar os californianos a reformar casas mais antigas.

p "Isso irá percorrer um longo caminho em direção a esses diferentes municípios (ao mostrar) que eles merecem financiamento, "Moritz disse.

p McClatchy identificou mais de 75 vilas e cidades com populações acima de 1, 000 onde, como o paraíso, pelo menos 90 por cento dos residentes vivem nas "zonas de gravidade de risco de incêndio muito alto" Cal Fire.

p Aqui estão alguns instantâneos de 10, e os desafios únicos que enfrentam:

p ___

p Shingletown:um paraíso em miniatura

p População (2010) —2, 283 'Em Zona de Gravidade de Risco de Incêndio Muito Alta-2, 283

p Shingletown tem menos de um décimo do tamanho de Paradise, mas provavelmente apresenta o mesmo risco.

p Como o paraíso, a comunidade não incorporada fica no topo de uma colina, e está coberto de árvores altas e arbustos grossos - ingredientes para um grande incêndio florestal. Shingletown era originalmente chamado de Shingle Camp, para os trabalhadores que cortaram as ripas de madeira do telhado para abastecer os mineiros durante a era do Gold Rush.

p "Nós plantamos árvores como ninguém aqui em cima, "disse Tom Twist, um membro do Shingletown Fire Safe Council, uma organização voluntária. Torção, que vive na comunidade de vez em quando desde os anos 1970, disse que quando o tempo estiver quente, ele andará em sua propriedade, arrancar mudas em um esforço quase inútil para eliminar combustíveis em potencial.

p “Vou arrancar 20 ou 30 mudas do solo por dia, "ele disse." É quase como quando eu ando até lá, há 20 ou 30. Quando eu volto, há mais 20 ou 30. "

p Assim como o paraíso, escapar da crista em um incêndio em movimento não seria fácil; A principal dificuldade de Shingletown é sinuosa, Estrada estreita 44. E, como no paraíso, a presença de uma população idosa tornaria a evacuação mais difícil; A idade média de Shingletown é 61, de acordo com os números do censo.

p Não é de se admirar que, quando o governador Gavin Newsom ordenou que Cal Fire desenvolvesse uma lista de projetos urgentes de segurança contra incêndio, um plano para aparar 1, 124 acres de vegetação ao longo da Rodovia 44 surgiram como a principal prioridade entre 35 projetos em todo o estado.

p Os moradores locais dizem que estão felizes pelo estado estar prestando atenção a um problema que eles conhecem muito bem. A comunidade teve que evacuar quando o incêndio de Ponderosa, começou por um raio, atingiu em 2012. O incêndio queimou 27, 676 acres - 43 milhas quadradas - e incendiou 52 casas nas proximidades.

p "Estamos intimamente cientes dos perigos aqui em cima, "Twist disse.

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p Nevada City:pitoresca e arriscada

p População (2010) —3, 068 'Em Zona de Gravidade de Perigo de Incêndio Muito Alta - 3, 064

p Desde o acampamento, Vicky Guyette considerou o pedaço de arbusto não aparado de um acre atrás da casa da era vitoriana de sua mãe em Nevada City como mais do que apenas um incômodo sem atrativos.

p Agora, a escova é sinistra - uma fonte de ignição que pode incendiar a casa construída em 1859 onde sua família viveu por cinco gerações.

p A mesma ansiedade também se aplica aos cedros, pinheiros e arbustos cobrindo as colinas ao redor desta cidade no sopé de cerca de 3, 100 pessoas, muitos dos quais vivem ou trabalham em prédios de madeira que datam da época da corrida do ouro.

p "É muito assustador, especialmente porque é uma pequena cidade tão bonita que tenho vivido em toda a minha vida, "Guyette disse recentemente, enquanto caminhava pela histórica Broad Street da cidade, que parece que caiu de uma foto de uma exposição de museu.

p As autoridades municipais concordam que os atrativos florestais, encostas íngremes, ruas residenciais estreitas, casas antigas e densa copa de árvores urbanas que definem o caráter da cidade também a tornam particularmente vulnerável se ocorrer um incêndio.

p "O maior risco de vida humana e perda financeira da cidade de Nevada é o incêndio, "O plano de mitigação de riscos da cidade de Nevada diz.

p Nas décadas recentes, a cidade também teve quase acidentes com fogo, incluindo um grande perigo.

p Em 1988, ventos fortes empurraram o 49er Fire por 52 milhas quadradas do oeste de Nevada County, queimando 312 prédios e dezenas de carros.

p “Na época foi considerado um evento anômalo, "disse Billy Spearing, do Conselho de Segurança contra Incêndios do Condado de Nevada." Não era normal para eles naquela época. "

p Com esses incêndios se tornando o novo normal, Cal Fire está planejando cortar um 1, 802 acres corta-fogo no sudoeste do condado de Nevada, em um terreno que não queima há um século, ajudando a proteger a cidade de Nevada e a comunidade adjacente de Grass Valley, lar para mais de 12, 000

p Nevada City também embarcou em uma campanha online "Goat Fund Me" para arrecadar US $ 25, 000 para contratar fazendeiros para usar suas cabras para comer arbustos densos em mais de 450 acres de cinturão verde municipal.

p 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.

p "All it takes is a drunk with a cigarette, " ela disse.

p 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.

p "We need to get rid of them, " ela disse.

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p Colfax:Fire is on everyone's minds

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

p 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.

p "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."

p 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.

p "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.

p 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.

p The terrain poses a major fire risk.

p 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.

p 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.

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

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p Kings Beach:Tourists seek fun, bring fire danger

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

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

p That's a big part of the problem.

p 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.

p "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."

p 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.

p 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.

p 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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p Pollock Pines:Do the transplants get it?

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

p 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.

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

p 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.

p 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.

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

p "Aqui, 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!"

p 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.

p "They were going to evacuate 9, 000 pessoas, " 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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p Arnold:Trees are falling in Big Trees country

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

p 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.

p "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.

p 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.

p "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."

p 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.

p 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, autoridades locais disseram.

p 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.

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

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

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p Wofford Heights:Apathy in a danger zone?

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

p 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.

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

p "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.

p Em 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.

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

p "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."

p 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.

p She said too many locals have grown complacent.

p "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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p La Cañada Flintridge:Is aggressive fire prevention enough?

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

p 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.

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

p 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.

p Fines can be issued for non-compliance. Recentemente, one of Settles' neighbors had to saw off the top of a pine tree because it was too close to a transmission tower, ela disse.

p 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.

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

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p 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.

p 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.

p 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.

p Ainda, 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.

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

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p Rancho Palos Verdes:Few fears in an affluent suburb

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

p 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.

p "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.

p He added, moments later:"Hope that's not naive."

p City officials say it's not.

p "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.

p 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.

p Ainda, Rancho Palos Verdes' hazard mitigation plan lists wildfire as a bigger threat to the city than earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides. 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.

p 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.

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

p 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.

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

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p Harbison Canyon:Will it burn a third time?

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

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

p 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.

p 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.

p "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."

p That sort of talk makes longtime resident Mary Manning cringe.

p 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. Por exemplo, the side streets in Harbison Canyon are narrow. Algum, like Manning's, remain unpaved despite decades of building.

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

p 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.

p 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. p © 2019 Associated Press. Todos os direitos reservados.