As Arlynn Page walked me into her smoke-clogged living room in Altadena, she tried to answer the question people always ask after wildfires: Why would anyone risk living there? I've asked myself that question again and again in the six years since I moved into a house on an old mining claim in the fire-prone foothills outside Boulder, Colo. It's in what experts call the "wildland-urban interface" — basically, ground zero for wildfires. I'm based in Phoenix these days, but still think of that house beneath Sugarloaf Mountain as home. I've covered wildfires across six Western states. When I meet people at evacuation centers or alongside their destroyed homes, they often assume that, as a New York Times reporter, I'm from, well, New York. I have to tell them that fire zones are close to home for me, too. We sometimes end up comparing notes about why we chose to make our homes in the hills where fire looms. How we've weighed the risks against the allure of nature and the more affordable housing stock. We talk about clearing out trees and bushes to harden our houses against fire, and whether it makes any difference in this era of hotter, deadlier megafires. We talk about planning evacuation routes, our soaring insurance premiums, what we've got in our go boxes. I'm lucky. I haven't had to come home to a heap of rubble and agonize over whether to rebuild or to take a loss on my single largest financial investment and try to start over somewhere else. Maybe it's foolish or irresponsible to live where we do. There are 16 million homes in the wildland-urban interface. And every new fire I cover is a stark reminder that the next one could swallow up mine. Ms. Page was drawn to her new home overlooking El Prieto Canyon for its views and its quiet, the sense of serenity and closeness to nature. The Eaton fire incinerated the two houses next door. Hers survived, but smoke and soot made it uninhabitable. "I just wanted to be in a safe place," Ms. Page told me. She then said what millions of people across the West — me included — have been thinking lately: "I'm wondering if any place is safe."
Look up the heat index in your area using The Times's heat tracker. See active fires using The Times's wildfire tracker.
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California Today: Trump Seeks to Assert More Control Over California’s Water
January 27, 2025
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