The scenery is breathtaking — rolling hills, steep canyons and stately vineyards, a pastoral landscape ruled by cattle, sheep and the occasional coyote. But there are also grim markers of the worst wildfire season in modern California history, in the form of blackened oaks and pines.
Guenoc Valley is a $1 billion resort and housing development planned for Lake County, in the heart of one of the most fire-prone regions in the state. A portion of the site burned in the LNU Lightning Complex, a string of wildfires that chewed up 360,000 acres of wine country last September.
The state has decided the risk is too high. The Attorney General’s Office, in league with the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, is suing Lake County officials over their decision to approve the development.
What happened last fall was no fluke, the state argues. Much of Guenoc Valley lies within spots designated by Cal Fire as highly vulnerable to major fires. “Wildfires have affected the Project site throughout its history,” the lawsuit says.
As California confronts another potentially perilous summer, with drought and climate change turning vast stretches of its forests and chaparral into kindling, projects like Guenoc Valley are becoming major points of conflict for developers, wildfire scientists and elected officials.
From Redding to San Diego — in areas that are in danger of burning, have burned already and might well burn again — houses and commercial buildings are sprouting.
And Californians are buying them.
“People liked the ridge-top construction, you know?” said Redding homebuilder Jeb Allen, who’s constructing a popular subdivision on land surrounded by the burn scar from the deadly Carr Fire in 2018. “They liked the feeling of the open space, which I think is part of the pandemic. People like elbow room.”
Allen and other developers acknowledge they’re building in what Cal Fire calls “fire hazard severity zones.” They say they are building their communities safely.
Guenoc Valley’s developer says the fire risks will be contained by strategically placed fuel breaks — strips of land where vegetation has been eliminated or modified — and well-irrigated vineyards and orchards. Cattle, sheep and goats will graze the pastures that will be a main feature of the project. High-definition cameras will serve as an early-warning system, and the first building to open will be a Cal Fire station.
“I completely understand and respect the concerns about fire safety,” said Alex Xu, chief executive of Lotusland Investment Holdings Inc., which is leading the Guenoc Valley project. “If we weren’t confident in our ability to defend and prevent fires, or major wildfire events, we as business people wouldn’t be committing (to) this kind of investment.”
For years, environmentalists have used CEQA — the California Environmental Quality Act — to bottle up development projects in the courts, citing air pollution, blight and other maladies. Now, due to a revision in the law that took effect in 2018, wildfire risk is grounds for litigation, too.
Invoking CEQA, two environmental groups secured a ruling in April that temporarily halts the 19,000-home Tejon Ranch Centennial project near Los Angeles because of fire hazards. Tejon Ranch’s developers called the ruling a speed bump and said they’ll work with county planners to fix the problem.
Shortly after suing over Guenoc Valley in Lake County, the attorney general filed a similar case over Otay Ranch Village, a pair of subdivisions in San Diego County, saying the fire dangers constitute a violation of CEQA.
Developers are fuming about it. Borre Winckel, president of the San Diego County Building Industry Association, said the state is “doing the bidding of the hardcore environmentalists.”
CAN DEVELOPERS BE FIRE-SAFE?
Just how far California will go to stop the spread of development is unclear.
Since taking office in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to hire more firefighters, buy more helicopters and deploy infrared cameras. He approved $536 million in “early action” spending in April to thin out forests and retrofit homes against flying embers. Newsom and lawmakers have agreed to spend hundreds of millions more in the upcoming fiscal year to fight and prevent wildfires.
But when it comes to halting development in fire-prone areas, Newsom appears to tread carefully.
Last September, as some of the worst fires of the season were still burning, Newsom vetoed SB 182, a bill that would have required communities approving new developments in wildfire zones to build evacuation routes and raise fees to clear flammable vegetation.
In his veto message, Newsom said the bill would conflict with the state’s goals of easing its crippling housing shortage. California has been building 100,000 to 120,000 homes a year since 2015, well short of the annual goal of 180,000 set by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
Lawmakers are trying again this year. SB 12, by Senators Henry Stern and Mike McGuire, would forbid new developments in dangerous areas unless the local governments can demonstrate that the project meets certain “wildfire risk reduction standards,” including easily-traversed evacuation routes and fees to pay for vegetation removal.
In other words, a bill that’s similar to the one Newsom vetoed.
But McGuire, a North Coast Democrat, said the new measure is designed to ease Newsom’s concerns about housing shortages.
“This is a controversial piece of legislation,” McGuire said, anticipating resistance from builders. “And it is realistic .... We know development practices must change.” The bill passed the Assembly and is pending in the Senate.
His co-author, Stern, has already run into the realities of California’s pro-development political climate. SB 55, which he introduced in December, would have forbidden new developments in hazardous areas altogether. He then softened the bill to allow development if “comprehensive, necessary and appropriate” fire-safety measures were taken; he even offered incentives to developers to build elsewhere.
It didn’t matter. The bill is dead for this year.
“The building industry in particular really got their sights set on it,” said Stern, a Calabasas Democrat. “Even local government had concerns. We were kind of getting it from all angles there.”
Earlier this month, a task force led by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara suggested the state should discourage new developments in fire-prone areas by withholding state funds for infrastructure “where risk from climate disasters is too high.”
The building industry quickly attacked Lara’s proposal. “It is a nonstarter for us; it should be a nonstarter for everyone,” said Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association. “If we plan properly, we can avoid fire loss.”
Separately, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, a division of Cal Fire, has proposed stricter rules for building in fire-prone areas, including tougher regulations on lot sizes to space houses farther apart and wider roads to allow evacuees and fire trucks to maneuver.
Local governments are objecting. In places that have already burned, elected officials say the rules would strangle their rebuilding efforts.
“Obviously we want to be fire-safe,” said Paradise Mayor Steve Crowder, whose town was nearly destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire.
The Camp Fire killed 85 people, more than any other wildfire in California history, and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. So far, just 1,000 homes have been rebuilt, and 6,000 people have returned, leaving Paradise with one-fifth of its pre-fire population.
Under the new rules, Paradise “would lose a good part of our ability to rebuild these properties,” Crowder said. “It affects Paradise; it’s going to have a huge effect on Santa Cruz; it’s going to affect a huge amount of cities and counties in California.”
The story is the same, albeit on a much smaller scale, in other communities that have burned in recent years: The vast majority of residents refuse to leave even if Cal Fire says they’re at risk.
Bob Thall, 75, lost his home when the Glass Fire swept through the Deer Park community in Napa County last fall. “It’s something that we Californians have to accept,” he said.
Thall plans to rebuild.
“We know there’s going to be another wildfire,”he said . “I pray it’s not in my backyard.”
MAPPING WILDFIRE RISK WITH UNCANNY ACCURACY
About 4 million acres burned in California last year, more than any other year in modern history.
In many ways, it was entirely predictable.
A Sacramento Bee analysis shows that most of the scorched land sits within “very high fire hazard severity zones” — areas designated by Cal Fire’s scientists as highly vulnerable to major wildfires.
What’s more, much of that land had burned in previous years.
Between them, the worst of the 2020 fires — North Complex, Creek Fire, CZU Lightning Complex, LNU Lightning Complex, August Fire and Glass Fire — destroyed more than 8,600 homes and other buildings and burned through 2.2 million acres.
About 80% of the land was in Cal Fire’s “very high fire hazard” category. Another 13% of the acreage was in the next tier, the “high fire hazard” category.
In other words, almost all of the land that burned had long been considered at risk. Nearly 100% of the footprint of the North Complex fires — which killed 15 people in the Butte County community of Berry Creek, the deadliest incident of the year — was within the “very high fire hazard” category.
The Bee’s analysis was hardly a surprise to Dave Sapsis, wildland fire scientist and main overseer of Cal Fire’s hazard maps.
The maps have traditionally done “a good job of describing burn predictability,” Sapsis said.
Cal Fire’s maps are the legacy of two major fires a generation ago: the Panorama Fire in San Bernardino in 1980 and the Oakland Hills disaster of 1991, which killed 25 people. The Legislature directed the agency to map out the risks in California based on such factors as terrain, vegetation and weather.
The maps revealed striking patterns about Californians’ susceptibility to wildfire danger. A McClatchy analysis shows that more than 2.7 million Californians live in “very high fire hazard” zones. About 350,000 live in towns and cities that sit completely, or almost completely, within these zones.
Sapsis said the maps failed to predict just one major catastrophe — the destruction of the Coffey Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa, in the 2017 Tubbs Fire. Coffey Park isn’t in a “very high fire hazard” zone.
The current maps, drawn more than a decade ago, are being revised to reflect better weather models and other improvements, Sapsis said.
Not everyone will like the new maps. State law says new construction in the “very high fire hazard” zones must meet California’s strict building code, such as fire-resilient roofs. A McClatchy analysis showed the code likely saved hundreds of newer homes in the Camp Fire, but these building materials can add thousands of dollars to construction costs.
Anticipating resistance from local officials, Sapsis said Cal Fire will make sure the mapping is “insulated from local politics and agendas.”
AFTER LANDSCAPE BURNS, IS IT SAFE TO REBUILD?
The Creek Fire was among the worst of the 2020 season, consuming 380,000 acres in Fresno and Madera counties, destroying 856 homes — and prompting hair-raising helicopter rescues from the Sierra National Forest.
Ty Gillett looked at the wreckage and made a decision.
Gillett lost his home. He lost his business, the historic Cressman’s General Store near Shaver Lake. His parents lost their home. All told, he and his extended family lost six of their nine homes.
Yet the general store reopened just before Memorial Day, and Gillett and his relatives plan to rebuild their homes.
“We grew up in the mountains,” he said. “We love to ski. We love to ride motorcycles .... I grew up here, my family’s been here for two generations. All of the friends and community that are here are worth the danger.”
Besides, Gillett believes that much of the danger has passed. Many of the trees that could catch fire are gone now.
“There’s just no fuel,” he said.
Cal Fire agrees with him, to a point.
Jim McDougald, a Cal Fire division chief in the Fresno area, agreed that the Creek Fire eliminated lots of flammable vegetation.
“It could very well be a safer place out there,” McDougald said.
But if left on its own, the Shaver Lake area could become a monster again.
McDougald said the area lost plenty of conifers that had shaded the forest floor and kept brush from growing quickly. Without the shade, the brush could grow back quickly, raising fire dangers anew.
“The important part is to continue to manage that land,” he said.
Newsom likes what he sees. In mid-April the governor visited the Shaver Lake area to discuss forest management — and pointedly expressed support for rebuilding efforts.
“I wanted to see first hand the people moving back into their homes,” he said. “It’s a reminder of how resilient this state is.”
STAYING PUT AFTER ‘FIRENADO’ IN REDDING
Newsom could have found resilience in Redding, a city ravaged by the Carr Fire’s infamous “firenado,” in which flames and ash swirled in a massive vortex that created its own powerful winds.
The 2018 fire killed eight people and burned 1,077 homes, but that hasn’t stopped Jeb Allen.
The former pro drag racer and his company, Palomar Builders, are building 1,000 homes across Redding, including 412 just west of downtown, in a subdivision called Salt Creek Heights, where the surrounding area is scarred by the fires of summers past.
While business slowed after the Carr Fire, houses are now selling quickly. Allen said they meet the state’s strict building standards for wildfire zones: tempered windows, boxed eaves, fire sprinklers, screens on the gutters to keep out embers.
“You can design a project with the correct mitigation,” he said.
Some advocates remain unconvinced about the wisdom of building — and rebuilding — in places known to burn. A new report by nonprofit think tank Next 10 and UC Berkeley urges the state to stage a “managed retreat” from areas that have burned and encourage wildfire victims “to move to lower-risk locations.” The exception would be places that can dramatically reduce fire hazards.
The report says it would cost a staggering $610 billion to replace all the homes in the state’s most fire-prone areas. Co-author Karen Chapple, a Berkeley professor, acknowledged that fire victims have emotional ties to their communities, but she said the state must stop subsidizing the cycle of building and burning.
“Rebuilding in the way we had it before — business as usual — is not the resilient, sustainable way to rebuild,” Chapple said.
On the outskirts of Redding, Larry Hartman is staying — even though he’s surrounded by reminders of the Carr Fire as he rebuilds the homes he and his daughters lost.
Just across the road, balloons and ribbons remain fastened to a tree, remnants of a memorial to the woman and two great-grandchildren who died in the fire. Practically every other tree in the area was burned to a skeleton.
Hartman, though, refuses to abandon the quiet country setting near downtown Redding.
“That’s where I’ve lived for 37 years,” he said. “This is like living in French Gulch or Whitmore,” he said, listing remote places miles away. “But, here, you’re five minutes from town.”
A few miles farther west, on rural Zogg Mine Road, signs of spring and early summer abound.
“It’s beautiful out here when it’s all green,” Bill Combest said recently as he surveyed the landscape. “When the trees were here, it was amazing. The deer, the foxes, the bears. Oh my god. There’s so many damn turkeys.”
Yet the faint smell of smoke lingers from the Zogg Fire, which destroyed his mother Annette Vowell’s home last fall. Vowell, 74, barely escaped — with only her three dogs and her medicine.
The new home will be prefabricated, with a fire-resilient metal roof. Combest is installing sprinklers on the property.
The project has a tinge of poignancy: Combest’s mother has cancer and wants to die in the spot where she’s lived the past 20 years.
“My mother’s not got long to live, and I want her to have a home again,” he said. “She hates it where we’re staying down in Redding.”
LIVING WITH WILDFIRE RISK IN A CITY THAT LOVES TREES
A tiny new neighborhood is growing in Nevada City, surrounded by trees.
Folks in Nevada City probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
A mile northwest of the city’s Gold Rush-era downtown, Pello Lane sits at the base of a small, wooded ravine.
“I think it’s going to be a very cute street when it’s finished,” said Ronnie Smiley, one of the first residents of Pello Lane, sitting on her porch with her granddaughter as construction crews worked nearby.
Smiley said far fewer trees surround Pello Lane than at her last home, on a five-acre spread by the Tahoe National Forest. “This is a better risk than where we were.”
But as far as Cal Fire is concerned, there’s plenty of danger on Pello Lane. The street sits in a very high fire hazard severity zone, the agency’s highest threat level.
Just like every inch of Nevada City.
“Nevada City is practically a complete fire zone,” said Mayor Erin Minett. “Actually, Nevada County is — I can’t think of a place that isn’t. We back up to the national forest; we have BLM (federal Bureau of Land Management) land that is intertwining everything.”
Trees matter in Nevada City. When PG&E Corp. began pruning more than 200 trees in a spot near Pello Lane last year, a few protesters climbed the trees to block the utility crews, prompting arrests. A group sued to halt the work, although a judge allowed PG&E to proceed.
Nevada City isn’t oblivious to fire risks. The city’s “Adopt a Sliver” program, begun in November, raises funds for clearing vegetation from public spaces. Minett said residents are becoming more diligent about sweeping their own yards of flammables.
The mayor said the risk will never be reduced to zero. “We can’t go and cut down every tree. The reason most of us moved here is because we love living amongst the trees and nature,” she said.
Realtor Tiffni Hald, who’s selling homes on Pello Lane, said the fire danger isn’t hurting sales in the new neighborhood, but it is affecting business elsewhere in the region.
“I have clients who are moving,” she said. “They have panic attacks — panic attacks — about fires. They’re leaving the state. Everybody’s got a to-go bag now….It’s no way to live.”
AMID SCORCHED CANYONS, A ‘MODEL FOR FIRE-SAFE COMMUNITIES’
The first time Thomas Azwell visited Guenoc Valley, it was an unsettling experience.
“As you’re driving up to the property, there are these narrow canyons that are scorched,” said Azwell, a UC Berkeley environmental scientist who’s consulting on the Lake County development. “You’re thinking, ‘I don’t want to be in this place when there’s a fire.’”
Azwell’s first trip came last June, when the Board of Supervisors was about to approve the project, and the scorch marks were from fires in previous years. Three months later, after the board voted, the LNU Lightning Complex torched part of the site.
Nevertheless, Azwell became a believer.
“I’ve seen the appetite the developer has to create a sustainable model for a fire-safe community,” said Azwell, who’s leading a scientific team that’s examining Guenoc Valley’s risks following a gift to UC from Lotusland. The research will be shared with Cal Fire.
These days, dump trucks and bulldozers sit parked near Guenoc’s main entrance. Stakes in the ground mark the site of the “farmstead village” retail center.
Because of the state and the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit, the project is at a standstill.
“We were ready to start this year,” said Xu, Lotusland’s CEO. “But given the litigation, we had to hold off on making major financial commitments.”
Guenoc will be built in one of California’s poorest and unluckiest counties, where wildfire has a long history and the poverty rate is 50% higher than the state average. Lotusland, based in San Francisco and Hong Kong, is planning a posh development that seems better suited to neighboring Napa Valley.
The project carries a price tag “in the billion-dollar ballpark,” Xu said. Besides upscale resorts and housing, Guenoc will feature a polo field designed by Ignacio Figueras, an internationally-known polo player and friend to Britain’s Prince Harry. The project site includes part of an old country estate owned by Lillie Langtry, a famed British actress of the late 1800s.
Glamorous touches aside, Xu said Guenoc will be understated. The resort areas will consist of cottages, not high-rise towers. Much of the land will remain as vineyards, pasture and open space, to maintain the rural character and tamp down fire risks.
While the county’s planning document acknowledged that “Guenoc Valley is in a fire-prone region,” the project has broad support in a place starved for economic development. The Board of Supervisors approved it 4-1 last summer; the only dissent was over water supplies.
The lawsuit — and September’s fire — haven’t diminished officials’ enthusiasm.
“Developing more housing supply is an area of profound concern, and we also need thriving businesses, to employ local residents and strengthen our economy,” said Supervisor Moke Simon, who represents the Guenoc area, in a statement issued by the county. “Neither of these will happen if we adopt a perspective that wildfire-prone areas of the State should cease all development.” County officials declined to be interviewed for this story.
Just weeks after supervisors voted, flames from the LNU complex swept onto the Guenoc property from the south. About one-fifth of the property’s 16,000 acres burned, although most of the damage was caused by backfires set by Cal Fire to steer the fire from nearby Middletown.
Xu said the LNU complex didn’t shake his faith in the project. Instead, he believes Guenoc Valley will make the area safer — starting with the Cal Fire station in the heart of the site, funded by property taxes.
“Every single lot in the initial phase is within five miles, or an estimated 10-minute response time, from that emergency center,” Xu said. “If our development had been in place (last fall), Cal Fire would have been able to address those fires as they started."