Remembering the horrors of heaven helps us prepare for fire season

Ruidoso is a beautiful village, the city’s natural playground, nestled in the Sierra Blanca Mountains of New Mexico.

Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir dominate the canopy of the Lincoln National Forest. State Highway 48 cuts through the forest and divides the town, forcing some residents to go to the town’s main street to visit or escape.

Six years ago, reporters from The Arizona Republic found that Ruidoso had one of the highest wildfire risks of any small town in the West, higher than Paradise, Calif., where 85 people died in the 2018 Camp Fire.

The horror of Paradise caused Republic journalists to wonder if we could predict and encourage others to prevent a similar catastrophe.

That plan came to mind this week as more than 8,000 people fled Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs as two fires on the Mescalero Apache Reservation converged. The South Fork Fire and Salt Fire consumed 20,000 acres in two days.

“It’s like being in a live-action horror movie,” former Ruidoso News reporter Pam Bonner told Mike Smith of the Carlsbad Current-Argus. “We sit here and wait, wondering if we have a home to return to.”

A 60-year-old man died and more than 1,400 structures were lost Wednesday.

The two wildfires were like “a pair of pliers,” New Mexico forestry spokesman George Ducker told CNN, “and Ruidoso is in the middle.”

The work carried out in 2018 by these Republic journalists, published under the title Ahead of the Fire, is a living resource guide and warning to check access and egress from rural roads, forest health, intrusions of developers in wildlands and emergency alert systems.

Along with Ruidoso, The Republic found increased risks of wildfires in places such as Pine, Arizona; Idyllwild and Hayfork in California; Leavenworth, Washington; Riggins, Idaho; Cascade, Colorado; Oregon’s Rogue Valley; and outside of Glacier National Park in Montana. The Republic found that more than 500 small Western communities were at greater risk than Paradise.

The editorial began with two questions: could journalists isolate and measure the risks linked to Paradise? Could they map these risks in cities and towns spread across 760 million acres of the American West? Journalists Ren Larson and Dennis Wagner tackled these challenges.

They started with the U.S. Forest Service’s Wildfire Hazard Potential (WHP) data, which assesses every 18-acre parcel in the country. The higher the score, the higher the likelihood that the location will experience a catastrophic wildfire.

Heaven was more than trees and buildings, so journalists added human variables to the analysis. The analysis included layers on resident age, disabilities, road access, housing types, English proficiency and whether cell phones could receive text alerts.

To flesh out the analysis as well as the site and audio, journalists and photographers traveled to eight states to hear from residents and city leaders.

Their stories have sparked urgency ahead of the upcoming fire season.

The value of “Ahead of the Fire” became clear when experts in the field asked to review The Republic’s analysis and invited journalists to discuss their findings. At the request of state and federal officials, The Republic shared its data and methodology with scientists at CalFire and the National Weather Service.

Red flag warnings, based on similar data, are issued throughout the fire season to alert millions of people before the next disaster. The interactive map of risk areas in the Republic is a public resource.

“Ahead of the Fire” is the result of curiosity and commitment. It comes from a desire to save lives, improve policy, and deepen understanding of our world.

It’s not too late to do something about the next wildfire.