Time Asia - October 24, 2017

TIME October 23, 2017

THERE IS NO GOOD

time for a wildfire

to break out, but the

middle of the night

may be the worst. The

darkness makes it

hard for firefighters to

size up the flames, and

people like Eduardo

Flores are tucked away

in their beds. When

Flores, 66, and his wife awoke to find flames nearing

their Santa Rosa, Calif., mobile-home park in the

early hours of Oct. 9, they hammered on neighbors’

windows and doors, imploring them to wake up—

and race out. “By the grace of God, we got out with

our lives,” Flores says. “It was literally raining fire.

We were choking, gasping for air.” They made it to

a safe distance, and then watched their home turn

to ash.

As of Oct. 10, 17 large wildfires were burning in

California, including one of the worst firestorms the

northern part of the state has ever seen. The flames

ate through pristine wilderness and manicured

communities both, claiming lives and torching

homes and businesses as well as wineries in the

world-renowned regions of Napa and Sonoma. The

blazes left at least 17 people dead, dozens more

missing and more than 2,000 structures destroyed.

Among the tragic toll were animals unable to

escape. One observer said the smell of their charred

remains lingered in air thick with ash and the fire

retardant dropped by planes flying above.

As an estimated 20,000 people evacuated,

Governor Jerry Brown declared an emergency in

eight counties and asked the federal government for

help. President Trump approved a federal disaster

declaration on Oct. 10. “We will be there,” the

President said of California, a state that is leading

the legal charge against many of his key domestic

policies. As Trump spoke, the fires had collectively

burned more than 115,000 acres, an area three times

the size of San Francisco, where smoke floated

down from blazes to the city’s north.

OCTOBER TENDS TO BE the worst month for

wildfires in California. The land is parched and

humidity is low. And conditions were primed

for fires to spread in recent days as gusts of over

50 m.p.h. whipped blazes across ground that had

been drying out all summer.

This year’s fire season had “already been an

extremely busy one,” says Daniel Berlant, assistant

deputy director at the California Department

of Forestry and Fire Protection. The state has

grappled with more than 7,700 fires in 2017 so far,

and their number and intensity has been growing

year over year, with bigger blazes causing more

destruction during a fire season that is now about

78 days longer than it was in 1970.

Many factors explain why: California only

recently emerged from a five-year drought, turning

its trees and shrubs into ready-made tinderboxes.

A decline in logging has ensured that forests are

packed with fuel. And the state’s steadily growing

population means a greater risk of fires, with more

people in harm’s way. Experts like Scott Stephens,

a professor of fire science at the University of

California, Berkeley, say climate change is a key

part of the equation too. Increased temperatures

are making it “more difficult to deal with fire in the

state,” he says, “because of drier, longer seasons.”

So does that mean the fires will only get

worse? Stephens says there are plenty of small

ways Californians can minimize the number of

people who find themselves suddenly homeless.

Measures range from changing rules about

where people are allowed to build to teaching

homeowners not to keep firewood near the

front porch.

That lesson is little help for those who no

longer have porches to go home to. On Oct. 10,

with winds dying down, some residents were

working their way back into evacuation zones

to see what was left. Napa winemaker Clayton

Kirchhoff weaved through smoke and back

roads only to find that his home was “just

gone.” He knew he was lucky to be safe. But he

was overcome by big and little questions, like

whether the wine he had been tending each day

would spoil and turn to vinegar, or what would

have happened if he had been asleep when the

fire started. For the moment he planned to sift

through the rubble, he said, “and see if there’s

anything that might have survived.” —With

reporting byMELISSA CHAN/NEW YORK 

San
Francisco
CALIF.

WILDFIRE

LOCATIONS

AS OF OCT. 10PER NASA MODIS

Los

Angeles

▶For more wildfire photography, visittime.com/california-on-fire