Remembering the horrors of Paradise: Getting 'ahead of the fire' for Arizona's fire season
Ruidoso is a beautiful village, nature’s playground the city boasts, nestled in New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca mountains.
Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir dominate Lincoln National Forest’s canopy. State Highway 48 cuts through the forest and divides the town, forcing some residents to the town’s main drag to visit or escape.
Six years ago, reporters for The Arizona Republic found Ruidoso had one of the highest wildfire risks of any small town in the West, higher than Paradise, California, where 85 people died in 2018’s Camp Fire.
The horror of Paradise compelled Republic journalists to ask if we could predict and encourage others to prevent a similar catastrophe.
That project rushed back to mind this week as more than 8,000 people fled Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs as two fires from the Mescalero Apache Reservation converged. The South Fork Fire and Salt Fire consumed 20,000 acres in two days.
“It’s like being in a live horror movie,” former Ruidoso News reporter Pam Bonner told Mike Smith of the Carlsbad Current-Argus. "We sit here and wait, wondering if we have a home to go back to."
One 60-year-old man is dead and more than 1,400 structures had been lost as of Wednesday.
The two wildfires were like “a pair of tongs,” New Mexico Forestry spokesperson George Ducker told CNN, “and Ruidoso is in the middle.”
The work in 2018 of those Republic journalists, published as Ahead of the Fire, is a living resource guide and a warning to check rural road access and exits, forest health, wildland intrusions by developers and emergency alert systems.
Along with Ruidoso, The Republic found heightened wildfire risks in places such as Pine, Arizona; Idyllwild and Hayfork in California; Leavenworth, Washington; Riggins, Idaho; Cascade, Colorado; the Rogue Valley of Oregon; and outside Glacier National Park in Montana. The Republic found that more than 500 small communities in the West were at greater risk than Paradise.
The newsroom began with two questions: Could reporters isolate and measure Paradise’s risks? Could they map those risks in cities and towns across 760 million acres of the American West? Reporters Ren Larson and Dennis Wagner tackled those challenges.
They started with the U.S. Forest Service’s Wildfire Hazard Potential (WHP) data, which scores every 18-acre parcel of land in the country. The higher the score, the higher the probability the place will experience a catastrophic wildfire.
Paradise was more than trees and buildings so journalists added human variables to the review. The analysis included layers for residents’ age, disabilities, road access, housing types, English proficiency and whether cell phones could receive text alerts.
To give the analysis heart and soul as well as site and sound, reporters and photographers traveled to eight states to hear from residents and town leaders.
Their stories provided urgency ahead of the next fire season.
The value of “Ahead of the Fire” became clear when experts in the field asked to review The Republic’s analysis and invited reporters to discuss their findings. At the request of state and federal officials, The Republic shared its data and methodology with scientists at CalFire and the National Weather Service.
Red Flag Warnings, based on similar data, are issued throughout fire season to alert millions of people before the next disaster. The Republic’s interactive map of risk areas is a public resource.
“Ahead of the Fire” is the result of curiosity and commitment. It comes from a desire to save lives, improve policy and deepen the understanding of our world.
It’s not too late to do something about the next wildfire.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Remembering the horrors of Paradise help ready us for fire season
