These Palm Desert Properties Are At Risk For Wildfire Damage

PALM DESERT, CA — Last year, 8,835 wildfires in the Golden State leveled 3,629 structures. As California anticipated a dry summer, authorities geared up to defend houses and businesses around the state from potential fires.

Some 80 million properties in the U.S. are at risk of exposure to wildfire, according to a new model and report from the nonprofit First Street Foundation. About 16 percent of the nation’s population lives in areas prone to wildfire damage, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of the group’s data.

California was identified as one of the states with the highest wildfire risk.

In Palm Desert, 16,377 properties have some risk of being affected by wildfires over the next 30 years, representing 80 percent of all homes and businesses in Palm Desert's 92260 zip code, according to the RiskFactor.com report.

Overall, Palm Desert must remain vigilant in preparation to protect homes against wildfire over the next few decades, according to First Street’s Risk Factor website.

There have been no major wildfires recorded in the area since 1984.

Historically, in late 2003 and 2004, Riverside County saw over 130 properties and 38 square miles impacted by wildfire. From Idyllwild to Oak Glen, local, county and federal forestry efforts in recent years have included manual and mechanical thinning or removing small to medium trees - because they act as "ladder fuels" for fires to spread to treetops, where flames can spread to surrounding trees and increase in intensity.

"In dry temperate forests, such as mixed-conifer forests in California and ponderosa pine forests (like those in Arizona and parts of Southern California), the long-term result is that trees are getting killed by fires faster than they can grow back," Matthew Hurteau, an assistant professor at the Northern Arizona University School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, told the USGS.

Some communities are safer from catastrophic fires thanks in part to tree thinning, but the costs involved mean there are still thousands of dead trees in the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto mountains. In

Extreme drought conditions and rising temperatures contribute to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in the Golden State. This year, 1,734 wildfires have already scorched 7,464 acres, according to Cal Fire.

January’s extended dry spell was expected to continue into the spring with little precipitation, leaving most of the state in moderate to extreme drought conditions before summer. Dry conditions with above-normal temperatures through spring will leave fuel moisture levels lower than normal, increasing the potential for wildland fires, according to CalFire.

The 2022 fire season officially kicked into high gear when a wildfire in Orange County tore through some 20 homes and hundreds of acres last week. But experts said that fire season is more likely a year-round event nowadays.

“Summer in California no longer means the beginning of fire season. Rather, it means we are about to enter the roughest six or so months of a fire season that never ends,” said Bill Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and head of The West on Fire research project, according to USC News.

“Drought and the increasing effects of climate change come together in creating the likelihood — even the certainty — of bigger, hotter and more catastrophic fires year to year,” he said.

A significant lack of rain in recent months will likely set the stage for a dangerous fire season, meteorologists at AccuWeather predicted earlier this month.

"Unfortunately, in a nutshell, it looks like it’s going to be another busy season," he said. "We’re seeing a lot of drought. Almost half of the country is experiencing drought and the bulk of that is to the west," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Samuhel said, adding that AccuWeather forecasters "are expecting an above-average fire season."

Samuhel said he expects the 2022 season to burn 9.5 million acres of land across the western U.S. — 130 percent of the five-year average and 140 percent of the 10-year average.

Read also:

Fire History and Ecology Key to Forest Management

Manzanita, California Wildfires: 19 Fires Scorch 10,000 Acres Across Golden State In 2017

Southern California Fires: 177K Evacuated, 405 Freeway Closed In 2017