The Daily - One Family’s Fight Against the Dixie Fire

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Annie Correal, a reporter for The Times, has family in Indian Valley, in Northern California, roots which extend back to the 1950s.This summer, as wildfires closed in on the area, she reported from her family’s property as they sought to fend off the flames — and investigated the divided opinions about what had caused the devastating blazes.Guest: Annie Correal, a reporter covering New York City for The New York Times. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: A beloved ranching community in Northern California faces destruction by America’s largest wildfire.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In a summer of weather extremes, the Dixie Fire in California has stood out for its enormous scale. And as it's burned its way across the state's forgotten rural towns, it has revealed just how far residents will go to preserve their way of life and just how divided they are about what has caused the fires that now endanger it. Today, my colleague, Annie Correal,

on the experience of one California family, her own. It's Monday, September 20th. So my aunt and my uncle and my cousin and his wife, they live in Indian Valley. And Indian Valley is this beautiful high mountain valley in the northern Sierras. It's surrounded by thick green forest and the valley is covered in green pasture land where the cows graze. I've heard it referred to as the Switzerland of the Sierras. When my family came in the 1950s, this was still a really thriving area for mining and for logging, but those industries went into decline and a lot of people have left.

those industries went into decline and a lot of people have left. So at this point, the towns have really been winnowed down to a very small population of people getting by as they can. And one of the few stable ways that people have to survive is cattle ranching. And that's what my family does now. Like many rural towns in America that have seen their fortunes changed, this place is isolated. And there are a mix of people, but a lot of those who are left have become more conservative, particularly in recent years, and are generally distrustful of the government and the media. The raging Dixie Fire continues to destroy everything in its path, including the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville, California. And then the Dixie Fire actually arrived in Indian Valley.

California's largest wildfire exploded in size overnight, forcing thousands more to evacuate. And instead of leaving, my family decided to stay. We simply cannot stress it enough. Firefighters are pleading with you to please evacuate when orders are given. And a part of me wanted to know why. Why would they stay and fight these monster fires? How did they think they could beat the Dixie Fire? So I decided to go visit them and find out.

Around mid-August, I hopped on a plane and I flew to Reno, Nevada. The skies were incredibly hazy. It was very, very bad air. I picked up some supplies. You ready? I am. How are you doing today? I'm doing great.

I work indoors. That's a good thing. Yes. A respirator, masks, goggles. I may not need one of these. I'll turn it without opening it, if that's all right. Okay, yeah, it's all right. It's all under your receipt.

Thank you. And I drove the two hours or so to my family's home. And as I got closer to Indian Valley, there was what's known as a plume, the giant sort of puffy clouds that are created at the head of the fire. And you can't help but think of like a mushroom cloud when you see that image on the horizon. I started seeing forests that had been scorched. All that remained were the blackened tree trunks and the ground was covered in ash. And as I'm getting closer to my family's ranch, I come across a checkpoint.

Hi there. Hi. New York Times. The New York Times? Yeah. Where someone from the National Guard waves me down. It's an evacuated area, so... Yeah.

They're guarding the evacuation zone and they're not allowing people to go in. Got it. Thank you. Yeah. But they let me pass because I'm a journalist. And so I drive up to meet my family. I see my aunt, my uncle. Hi, Uncle Brian. But one person that I really want to talk to is my cousin's wife. Hi, Uncle Brian. I hope you wear masks here. How are you? But one person that I really want to talk to is my cousin's wife.

Hi, Vanessa. Vanessa Kingdon. Oh my goodness, I've only ever seen her here. And eventually we end up sitting down inside her house. And you didn't grow up here, Vanessa. You married. No, I'm from the Central Valley where there aren't fires or mountains or anything. Vanessa's not from the area.

She met my cousin Travis six years ago, and since then she's been a part of their cattle ranching operation. Before that, though, she was a model. She worked at auctions and big conventions, and she would model outdoor gear and hunting supplies. I never felt like I should go home to my parents' house or evacuate, seek refuge somewhere. This is the first forest fire she's had to prepare to fight. And I ask her how she's planning to do that.

And she tells me for the last few weeks that she and my cousin and my uncle and aunt have been trying to create what she called defensible space around their ranches. Which basically means they've been clearing brush and cutting down trees so that there's less that can catch on fire. They've also been setting up fire hoses and pumps to draw water from the ponds so they can actually fight the fire if it comes to that. You'll stay here and put out spot fires until it gets to the point where it feels like there's going to be a column collapse and everything's going to go up. Yeah, you'd feel pretty silly if you abandoned your house and then there was a little spot fire that you could have prevented or put out. A lot of the destruction to homes and properties

is caused by flying embers that fly out ahead of the fire and cause spot fires. And so by staying, they believed that they could shoot down embers so that they wouldn't cause fires and bring down their homes and barns. And they're not enough firemen to be putting out those little fires at every home because it's coming on so many fronts. Like today, I actually haven't seen any fire engines all day. And that has that... That's been the case. That's why we stay, because we don't see.

The resources aren't here. And sometimes they show up an hour too late. What they told me was that their best shot they had at saving those ranches was sticking around and defending them themselves, because they felt strongly that if they didn't defend them nobody else would. But there's too many people that have already lost homes that could have been prevented so that's why we're here. Not to be a liability or in anybody's way you know we're just trying to do our best and protect our home our

community and our livelihood. And as a last resort, you have the field down here to evacuate and you have a fifth wheel trailer. It's in the center of the valley and it's all irrigated pasture around. And that's full of like my other car. That's equipment and personal items. So you've packed up. They do have a plan to sort of head for the irrigated fields, which are considered fire safe or fire safer, or even to take refuge in the ponds themselves. Yeah, I need to like get some clothes and things. Do you want me to get your toothbrush and your stuff from the bathroom? Yeah, let me do stuff. Although I have my phone, it is charged, but I'll take this.

I just need to get a bath. So as my family, Travis and Vanessa, are frantically preparing to fend off the fire, I get in touch with my editors and they say, you know what, this isn't safe. You need to leave. You need to get out of the evacuated zone and find a safer location. So I have to go. It was really hard to say goodbye in these circumstances. My first concern was whether they would be okay. I just worried that they might be outmatched by the Dixie Fire.

Okay, Auntie. Thank you for giving us time. You're so welcome. It's like what a bright spot on this fire. To see each other. So after I left, there was no way for me to easily be in touch with my family. They have no landlines where they are, no Wi-Fi at that point, and very limited cell signal. Finally, on the night of Friday, August 20th, we get a message from Vanessa,

who's gone out to where she can get a cell signal and sent us an update. And it said, well, family, today was the day. We'll be right back. So several days later, I drive my Jeep back to Indian Valley, and I meet Vanessa at her house. And over the next day or so, she tells me what happened. August 19th, I have photos at like 7.30 at night of us just kind of standing around and watching the fire. It was on August 19th that they first caught sight of the fire, which by then was coming over the nearest ridge approaching the ranch. There are fire crews there, hot shot crews. Crews had been preparing the area, digging trenches with bulldozers, hoping to hold back the fire.

But then it started to crown. But the next day, the fire jumped over those trenches. At 103 is when it really started to look ominous. It was starting to get gray and the sky was just covered in embers and a big plume. And it was just getting closer and closer. And you can hear the crowning. Crowning is when the fire is at the tops of the trees instead of at the base or on the ground and once it's on the tops it's it's really easy for it to spread from treetop to treetop

and move very rapidly and It sounds like a jet. You hear it coming down the hill. And it seems like forever for it to get to you. But then when it does, it's like, oh my gosh, then you have to switch gears. And then you realize, okay, it's go time. And at the point when the fire arrives, Vanessa is at the ranch alone with her 70-year-old mother-in-law, my Aunt Heather. Their husbands, my Uncle Brian and my cousin Travis, had gone to check cows. And I remember having one moment of just like, where's Travis? I swallowed, I took a deep breath, and I said,

put your big girl panties on. This is what's happening. And so Vanessa and my Aunt Heather quickly kicked into high gear. We ended up putting our jackets on, our respirators, our goggles. And they start rounding up the animals. You know, the horses were running around. They just knew something wasn't right. And we had to go ahead and catch them because we didn't want them to go through the fence or panic. So we ended

up moving the horses in the barn. And then that was just our main focus is to protect that structure. So they start spraying down the barns inside and out because it's obviously harder for an ember to catch fire on a wet structure. We were soaked and we couldn't see out of our goggles because of all the spray from the hoses. And all we did was just wet down everything the hoses would reach. So these aren't your everyday garden hoses. These are heavy-duty firefighting hoses that are hooked up to pumps that have drawn water from the ponds, and they're pressurized. They are spouting water at such a force that if you were to lose control of them, they could actually

flip and knock out your teeth. You can see the fire behind it. It's orange and it's starting to swirl and has a mind of its own. Could you feel heat? Could you feel, was there ash in the air? Yes, the ash in the air. Definitely having the respirator on made all the difference. in the air. Definitely having the respirator on made all the difference. Otherwise it would just burn when you were breathing it. In your eyes, the ash getting in your eyes, it's painful. So they switch from spraying down the structures to literally having to shoot down these embers as they fall from the sky. These are burning twigs and branches and the fire itself. And at this point, there are no fire engines around. There weren't any people patrolling. And after a while, their husbands arrive. And at about the same time, several fire engines arrive and firefighters begin

pouring out onto the road. And what do they do? What do the firefighters do when they, begin pouring out onto the road. And what do they do? What do the firefighters do when they appear? They all just stand around and they did put some hose layout, but they put it on top of the hoses we already had. And then they stand around because there were no structures on fire. And that's their sole purpose is to make sure that if there's a structure fire, they put it out. So they weren't going to be helping us wet everything down. But I swear to you, if we were not out there soaking every square inch we could, there would have been a fire. And it would have probably taken a barn or two or whatever.

And that's their policy is that unless there's a structure on fire. Conserve your water. Conserve the water. There's like 500 gallons, give or take, in those fire engines. So they look at it like, oh, we only want to use it if we absolutely have to. And we're over here with huge ponds we're pumping out of and we don't need to conserve water. Now, I spoke to the fire authorities and they actually said there's no policy about conserving water. The firefighters assigned to protect homes, they're supposed to do whatever they can to defend them.

So if they didn't jump into action, as Vanessa claims they didn't, I was told it was because the firefighters didn't think it was necessary. But she's also expressing a frustration that I heard from a lot of people here. And that's that the fire crews haven't always been there, even though the fire has been raging right there. What I've heard over and over again from the U.S. Forest Service, which is the fire authority in charge of this part of California, is that their priority is to save lives, then to save homes, then to save resources.

So lives are their number one priority. That means residents. What that also means is that firefighting resources tend to get sent to more populated areas with more structures, especially at a time when there's so many big fires and resources are spread so thin. And that has left people in rural areas like Vanessa feeling like they're being left behind to fight the fire on their own. There was still fire above us and now we had fire on the other side of the valley. So you're kind of getting surrounded like it's almost like in a C shape that it's curled around one side of the ranch and now you're you're having it pretty much on three sides. Yeah. At that point, the fire is sort of raging right around the perimeter of my family's ranch.

And it roars through the forest closest to them on one side, just all the way up to the tops of the trees. And the sky is black with smoke. the trees and the sky is black with smoke. And it then jumps the road and it gets into a stand of trees, goes up a hill, jumps a river and goes into a forest on the other side of the valley, about half a mile away. And this all happens in about 45 minutes. So what I heard over and over again was that it's like 20 minutes of hell, and then it's just over. But then a few days later, the fire comes back, and Vanessa and my family have to fight it again and again, each time they successfully fight the fire off. We know, because we're living it, that it that it is constant like no matter where you

look you see something on fire some mountain is on fire. How I mean there's you've described to me feeling physical symptoms of having lived through this for six weeks what are the some of those physical symptoms? Oh god I don don't know. It can be really vain here and say that my skin has gone to hell. You know, all the ash in the air, my lungs, my eyes. I wake up in the morning and my eyes feel like they have rocks in them or they're really dry. And what about the psychological toll? It's like running the longest marathon of your life and having to focus on getting through it. And like, you can't let down. You can't let down yet. And yet, like, what are the rewards? You get to come home to your house, walk in the door, and it's still a home.

And it's standing. In talking to Vanessa, it was clear to me that she felt like her decision not to follow the evacuation orders had paid off. That it was what she and my cousin and my aunt and uncle did, not the firefighters, that saved the property. And did it ever cross your minds to leave? No, never. And of course, I had family members urging me to leave. And no, there's no way we would leave our home, our animals, our responsibility. So if you feel like if you hadn't stayed, you would have lost at least part of the ranch you could have looked at because the fire truck showed up after it already blazed through to them they're doing their job and i'm you know i'm not faulting them for that but it is their

job they are paid to do that it is not where they sleep at night and the people that lost their house and it's burnt to ashes they they're stuck in a fire camp. They're stuck in an evacuation camp or in a friend or family's home. And their whole world and life has changed. So, of course, you can't even compare because somebody doing their job, yeah, it sucks to lose a structure, but it doesn't change their world. For the firefighters. For the firefighters. But doesn't it make sense?

I mean, yes, it sounds incredibly frustrating for you guys, but bigger picture, if you've only got so many resources to spread around, doesn't it make sense for them to send the fire engines and the aircraft to places where there are more people, where there's a larger concentration of structures. Yes, if where they're pulling them from isn't still threatened, and we are still very much threatened. We still have fires all over this valley. And then the tax base, like,

they don't make as much money on us as they are going to make around Tahoe area. So what Vanessa is talking about here is that at this very moment, the U.S. Forest Service and the firefighting authorities are starting to have to pull resources, fire crews and aircraft from her area to send them to the big fronts threatening the area around Lake Tahoe. And what Vanessa says is that Tahoe is getting the resources because they have a bigger tax base. They're richer than these small rural communities. And they even mentioned like the tourism, like this is peak tourism season. And they're they're hell-bent on saving that rural communities are forgotten a lot of times or they're not top priority the

evacuation orders for their community came down right on the heels of the destruction of a town called greenville and it was pretty much burned to the ground. I just saw Greenville for the first time. Greenville, which burned down on August 4th. I was a little choked up, thinking, like, oh my gosh, it is so bad, and those poor people, and it looks like a third-world country that's been bombed. Now, it can be hard to argue with the fact that Greenville, which is this little rural town, burned down, while South Lake Tahoe, which is more populated and where there's a lot more money, was ultimately saved.

And you could see why that might seem to support Vanessa's theory that the fire authorities aren't doing enough to save rural communities like hers. But when I talk to people who have been studying the behavior of the Dixie Fire, what they told me was that it may come down to the extreme behavior of this fire and the fact that no matter how many resources you throw at it, sometimes you just can't fight it. It is creating high winds that are throwing embers out a mile or more in front of the fire. It's jumping dozer lines. It's really defying everything that fire authorities know about fire and defeating every tool that they have to fight it back. So firefighters are working really hard everywhere.

And sometimes what they do works, and sometimes it doesn't. And I think it's undeniable that our changing climate has made this a very urgent issue. But as I talked with Vanessa, it was clear to me she thinks this goes beyond climate change. What's the alternative? What can people do in the battle between man and nature when it comes to climate change and extreme weather there's nothing that can be done what is the alternative don't be naive don't believe that it's climate change alone don't think that yeah you you can't throwing your hands up and saying it's climate change and there's nothing we can do and it's that's that that's the easy way out. That's like, it's being, that's just putting your head in the sand. More than climate change, Vanessa thinks it's actually decisions by the government

that are contributing to these massive fires. For example, throughout the last century, authorities put out all fires which would naturally have cleared out the forest floors, letting them grow into these thick, untouched forests that can become like tinderboxes. And my cousin Travis points to what he thinks is another problem with how forests have been managed. The government hasn't been cutting down trees. It is dry here. This is not the rainforest. This is not the coast. This is not the rainforest.

This is not the coast. It's no place for densely forested mountains. It needs to be fenced. And they went through a stage to where there was, from the 80s on, they just stopped all management. So they stopped all management, and that's created the conditions for this to get. It's a domino effect. Like I said, it all could have been prevented. There's no reason that it should have burned

the entire Indian Valley. People like Travis and Vanessa, they expressed to me that they had kind of a bone to pick with these environmental groups who had fought so hard to keep loggers off the land and to stop thinning projects,

only to have these forests erupt in flames and be all but destroyed. I mean, we shouldn't be allowing environmental groups to halt logging or thinning projects because of, say, the spotted owl, which is... So spotted owl, timber wolves, there have been all these environmental groups that have been a huge force. A lot of this forest land has remained largely untouched. It hasn't been thinned. There's been a strong push not to go in and clear the land.

There's so many benefits to managing the forest, whether... And, like, if you want to get into the carbon issue, when all these resources burn, it's immediately released. Tons of carbon. And in a horrible way. You know, it's not natural decomposition or whatever.

They're burnt. It's instant. So there's a sustainable way. They've been in the carbon for hundreds of years. There's a sustainable way to manage the forests, in your opinion, so that they aren't left. To burn. To burn. And then, I mean, what about the... manage the forests, in your opinion, so that they aren't left to burn? To burn. And then, I mean, what about...

And Travis and Vanessa's point of view is one that many people in the area hold. It's really been a bit of a divide. They blame poor forest management for these massive fires, while environmentalists and California's elected officials blame climate change. But I think what the Dixie Fire has really shown us is that it's actually both, that it's not an either-or. There's growing consensus from both sides of the debate that it's rising temperature and drought and high winds

combined with thick forests that have created the current dangerous situation. I had put out in January a proposal for the legislature to invest a record amount in our home hardening, our forest health, as well as fuel break and vegetation management efforts, a billion dollars. So on the one hand, the Dixie Fire kind of vindicated people like Travis and Vanessa,

because forest management has become so much more a part of the mainstream conversation. But on the other hand, what they went through, what they lived as they fought the fire, really ended up confirming what they already believed. Which is that they were ultimately an afterthought for the government, that they were forgotten, and that they would be on their own. What do you think is going to be, like, the legacy of people here, how they feel about the authorities?

It's going to breed a whole new generation of like the prepper type mentality, I have a feeling. Yeah, I think people will start looking at it and going, oh, maybe we should be a little more prepared or maybe like you don't evacuate or somebody sticks around to make sure there's not a spot fire that burns the house down that could have been squashed with your garden hose.

You know, I'm sure people will rethink that. But, I mean, for us, this just means we will be more prepared for next fire season. Because it's clear to us now, you cannot count on anybody to save yourself. count on anybody to save yourself. What would it take for you guys to say, I'm going to move to somewhere else and start our business over again? You never could. It's physically impossible.

To be able to get this much ground, you can't move these cows to the other side of the country. They're not acclimated to that area. And we would never be able to still be ranchers if we got up and moved. Travis would have to go back to contracting and I would go get a job if need be. This, I don't ever see us leaving. I really don't. This is our home and this is where I want to live the rest of my life. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. I'm going to read the votes aloud.

Dr. Cohn voted no. Dr. Portnoy voted yes. Dr. Lee voted no. A panel of medical experts has issued a highly anticipated recommendation on booster shots of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to the FDA, saying they should not be given to most Americans. This vote did not pass since the majority voted no. The panel's recommendation undermines a plan from the Biden administration to give booster shots to anyone over 16, eight months after their second shot. Instead, the panel recommended booster shots only for those who are 65 or older or are at a high risk of severe infection. While the FDA is not bound by the recommendations of advisory panels,

it tends to follow them. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung, Caitlin Roberts, and Luke Vanderplug. It was edited by Lisa Chow, engineered by Chris Wood, and contains original music by Marion Lozano, Alisha Ba'itu, and Dan Powell. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.