Three years ago, after the Marshal Fire in Colorado destroyed almost 1,000 structures in 24 hours to become the most destructive fire in Colorado history, I wrote an article in this paper. I stated that Patagonia is at risk of the same kind of devastation should it be hit by a strong wind-driven fire, and that we can greatly reduce the risk by becoming a Firewise community.
In 2023, it was the Lahaina fire in Hawaii that caught so much attention, as a wind-driven fire destroyed 2,200 structures and took 102 lives in 12 hours. Under similar conditions, Patagonia would be destroyed in about an hour.
This year, less than a month in, a firestorm driven by Santa Ana winds in the Los Angeles area destroyed over 14,000 structures and killed at least 27 people.
The Marshall and L.A. fires started in winter, far from what used to be considered fire season. These days, most of the Southwest considers fire season to be all year long, though the greater chance for truly devastating fires is still the hot, dry times before the monsoons come, if they come.
While we did not have an abnormally high fuel buildup last summer, we are abnormally dry, and there’s plenty of fuel. If we get a fire on some of the high wind days we expect in the spring, we have the ingredients for a tragic disaster.
And those winds can come at any time, as we have just seen in L.A. If they are strong enough to ground air resources, we have little hope of stopping a fire blowing up Sonoita Creek from the west of town, despite collaboration between Patagonia Volunteer Fire and Rescue (PVFR), Tucson Audubon Society (TAS) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to build and maintain firebreaks. Highway 82 provides plenty of potential for ignition, from dragging chains, thrown cigarettes and other human behavior.
In that May 2022 PRT article, I wrote in detail about fire behavior, and how fuels (combustible plants and building materials) and weather combine to create firestorms, and how Firewise is a program of reducing fuels to slow or stop fires. It’s worth looking up the article—’Firewise Program Provides Protection‘—in the online PRT archives. The biggest takeaway is that fuels are the only element of a firestorm we can impact, and that reducing them is highly effective.
This time around I want to focus more on implementing a community-wide Firewise program for Patagonia.
Each year we at PVFR are asked to perform Firewise assessments for a handful of properties. While implementing the methods improves an individual property’s chance of surviving a wildfire, in a tight-packed community like Patagonia it’s almost useless. To be truly effective, Firewise needs to be a community-wide program. It starts by creating a board or committee of volunteers, including residents and agencies such as PVFR, Forest Service, State Lands, and land-owning organizations such as TAS, TNC and Borderlands Restoration Network, as well as homeowners’ associations.
It’s important that the program is initiated and run by residents that are not in the fire department, to avoid overtaxing PVFR’s volunteers, and to broaden the reach of the program. And we also need the entire community to participate. Most folks will have to make changes to their properties, and some even changes to their behavior. It’s a years-long process that starts with a comprehensive risk assessment, which leads to creation of a three-year plan of action, and then implementation and adjustments to the plan. It’s going to take time, money and labor, and must be maintained annually, and there’s no guarantee it will work in a worst-case scenario. But I can guarantee that without a community-wide effort, our town is doomed.
Three years ago, I suggested our community should begin the program and asked for folks willing to take on leadership roles, but no one ever did. This time, I’m begging. Three years from now, will we have a strong program protecting our community, or no protection, as we do now, or no town?
Interested in starting a Firewise program for Patagonia? Contact me at 520-604-0200.
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