State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Rethinking Hazard Mapping After Wildfires Entered Urban Areas Thought to Be 'Unburnable'

Route Fifty: While California is no stranger to wildfire disasters, the recent blazes in Napa and Sonoma counties and elsewhere will be remembered for years for their ferociousness, destruction and death toll, which as of Sunday night stood at 41, including many elderly people who weren’t able to escape the flames. That number, as local officials have warned, could continue to rise.

The past week has been the most deadly in California when it comes to wildfires. In 1933, a fire in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park killed at least 29 people and in 1991, the Oakland Hills firestorm killed 25 people.

While that blaze 26 years ago destroyed nearly 3,500 structures, the fire’s perimeter was mostly contained to neighborhoods in the hilly terrain that forms the eastern flank of the cities of Oakland and Berkeley. Firefighters were able to keep it from spreading down into urban areas.

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