South state fires ring foothills alarm

Residents of the foothills east of Sacramento have a long ways to go to prepare for the kind of blowtorching Southern Californians endured last week, fire experts say, and the threat grows as urban refugees continue to plant homes in the pines.

Like the mountainous outskirts of San Diego, Santa Ana and Los Angeles, the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is dotted with dozens of communities ensconced in thickets of dry trees and brush.

The datelines of devastation – Running Springs, Modjeska Canyon, Rancho Bernardo in the southland – could just as easily have been Grizzly Flats, Iowa Hill or Mosquito Camp in the Sierra.

Though Southern California suffers the scourge of drier weather and the Santa Anas – the fierce, hot winds in the fall and early winter – the Sierra is not much greener, and its afternoon winds can turn furious as they funnel through mountain passes.

The Sierra's oak woodlands and conifer forests are generally denser than the chaparral that fueled the destruction of Southern California homes, 1,700 in all. Many of the Sierra outposts are more isolated than the damaged Southland neighborhoods and have only a single fire escape – the same two-lane winding road firefighters would be using to get in and help.

"All you have to have is one horse trailer turn over on that road and you've blocked people from getting in and getting out," said Vicki Yorty, who – as executive coordinator of the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council – helps the remote neighborhoods reduce fire risks.

Several of the bottlenecked communities, including Lotus, Coloma and South Shingle Springs, have yet to set up an evacuation plan, let alone a phone tree to alert each other of wildfire, Yorty said.

The good news is that a grass-roots effort is under way to better protect these towns. In the past few years, rural neighbors have been banding together to share the costs of thinning brush and timber around homes.

Fire safe councils in El Dorado and Placer counties have enabled some neighborhoods to tap federal grants for building escape roads and fire breaks.

And, beginning in January, new and rebuilt homes in areas of high fire hazard will be required to meet tougher fire safety standards on everything from roofing materials to rain gutters, eaves and decks.

Any structure built in state-designated fire hazard zones – which virtually blanket the foothills – must incorporate fire-resistant designs and materials that state officials say will add only marginally to the cost of a new home.

The new codes spring from a growing realization that the growth of homes in the woodlands has outpaced firefighting resources, and the frequency and severity of wildfires are on the rise.

"We are not going to die for your homes," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes said of crews as they battled the Angora fire that destroyed 254 houses but caused no deaths on the outskirts of South Lake Tahoe in June.

"Our firefighters may well bypass a house ... because it's unsafe to defend," Mathes said. "They would rather focus efforts on a house they have a chance of saving."

The Angora fire motivated Jan and Bob Todd to launch a Sly Park Hills Fire Safe Council. Their forested neighborhood, about a 20-minute drive east of Placerville, has one way in and out.

"We do live in a forest and we do understand what the risk is," said Jan Todd, who has lived in the community for 25 years and recently retired from a career at Sprint telephone in Sacramento.

The group, which grew to 50 active members over the summer, mapped out a fire emergency plan for the community of 390 homes and filled about 22 Dumpsters with the brush they cleared. They hope to obtain grants for more clearing and to restore a historic stagecoach road as a fire escape.

For the 2,000 residents of Outingdale and nearby East Sand Ridge, the only way out may be on foot along the north fork of the Cosumnes River, said Yorty, who is helping those communities develop an evacuation plan.

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