Here are the California towns at highest wildfire risk for the elderly, disabled and immobile

It’s well-known that a number of areas in California — cities, small towns and remote places — are susceptible to devastation by wildfire.

Now, a new analysis by the nonprofit Direct Relief has mapped out which small towns in California could be the hardest hit by a fast-moving wildfire based on the numbers of low-income, immobile, aging or disabled people in those communities. It found nine towns with a “very high” social-vulnerability score.

The grim reality for vulnerable populations was made clear after the Camp Fire burned through Paradise last year, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 19,000 buildings. Officials later discovered many of the victims left behind were elderly or disabled and unable to quickly evacuate.

“Our initial question came out of looking at places like Paradise and the number of other communities that have burned,” said Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief’s director of research and analysis. “The crisis is because certain populations are more adversely affected than others or have a harder time responding than others so (we wanted to know) where are those places?”

Schroeder combined findings from McClatchy’s series Destined to Burn, which identified 75 places situated similarly to Paradise and combined it with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index.

The CDC’s data grades areas on multiple social barriers but Schroeder focused on five: poverty, the share of the population over 65 housing density, vehicle access and the number of people with a disability. He found 25 of the places were at high risk for social vulnerability.

The goal, Schroeder said, is that in the future communities will not be caught by surprise.

“We find often, and I think wildfires and California is not exceptional in this case, there’s often a lot of attention paid to things like weather and the physical risks a place faces,” Schroeder said. “There’s less attention paid beforehand to the kind of people that are most at risk and how we can mitigate it.”

This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 9:28 AM with the headline "Here are the California towns at highest wildfire risk for the elderly, disabled and immobile."