Through her hotel room window, Helen Foreman surveyed the wooded hillside where encroaching flames Monday threatened her mobile home in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.
He bought a home just last year in Running Springs, a small community about 80 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Rejoicing as a first-time homeowner at age 63, she carefully selected patio furniture and planted eight giant sunflowers in the front yard.
But over the weekend, the Line fireA fast-moving fire that has since grown to more than 23,000 acres and threatened more than 36,000 structures, Ms. Foreman was forced to evacuate with little more than a few family photos, some clothes and the deed to the house.
“It would be horrible to lose it, now that I’m finally a homeowner,” she said.
California’s Inland Empire has long been a haven for Los Angeles, offering popular mountain ranges in Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, as well as a more affordable option for Southern California residents to purchase homes. The region, which includes San Bernardino and Riverside counties, has quadrupled in population to 4.6 million over the past 50 years as generations of homebuyers prize locations near the coast.
But migration to once-remote areas — especially towns nestled in the mountains or foothills — has come with risks in the age of climate change.
Just 18 months ago, Ms. Foreman stayed in the same hotel in Highland, California, where she is currently holed up, when a record-breaking snowstorm stranded residents of her community in the San Bernardino Mountains without access to electricity or food for days. or help. During the blizzard, which was known locally as Snowmageddon, 13 people died A review Months later by the Los Angeles Times.
The torrential rains of the past two winters, which have not taken a direct hit A rare tropical storm In 2023, this summer helped set the stage for a devastating fire season in California, particularly in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The rain that drenched the mountains nourished the plants and helped them to grow abundantly. Those same plants then withered dangerously during multiple heat waves this summer, with A stretch which started several days ago in Southern California.
Communities in and around the San Bernardino Mountains were primed for wildfires, said Dave Munyan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. “Unfortunately, because they get the most rainfall, they get the most vegetation,” he added.
The Inland Empire consisted largely of agricultural communities and citrus farms until the steel and aerospace industries boomed after World War II, spurring a population boom. Today, low cost homes are the main attraction for people; The median sales price in San Bernardino County in July was $534,000, about half that of Los Angeles County, according to real estate services company Redfin.
The recent rise of e-commerce has also brought about Flow of warehouses In the San Bernardino Valley, where fire risks are lower, that makes it more likely for newcomers to live in mountain areas, said Karthik Ramakrishnan, a public policy researcher and demographer and policy analyst at the University of California, Berkeley. Trends in the state.
In June, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, the region’s governing body, passed a resolution to have the state declare a state of emergency for the disaster-prone area. Insurance companies have increasingly abandoned their territory, and supervisors said the inability of homeowners to obtain fire coverage is becoming a crisis.
Ricky Garcia and Beth Walsh moved to the San Bernardino Mountains 30 years ago from Thousand Oaks, an expensive suburb 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Despite evacuation orders, the couple remained in their home in Running Springs on Monday, reluctant to leave the home, which had been damaged by a wildfire once before in 2007.
They said they felt they were still far enough out of harm’s way that they could safely escape if things got worse. And their anxiety will be greater not knowing if their home has survived than it is now, they added.
“We’re loaded and ready to go, if things change,” said Mr. Garcia, 52. It has been devastating. So for us, it’s worth the risk.
By Monday, schools were closed, and 11,000 residents were ordered to evacuate as the line of fire continued to grow, filling the sky with smoke. The fog appeared much thicker than it had on Sunday, and people as far as 40 miles away in parts of neighboring Riverside County, outside of San Bernardino County, could smell the smoke.
The fire, which started on Thursday, was 3 percent contained by Monday afternoon. Jake Rodriguez, public information officer with the Forest Service, said difficult topography and high temperatures complicated firefighters’ efforts.
There was some good news coming, however: Temperatures are expected to start dropping on Tuesday and then drop further on Wednesday. Mr. Rodriguez said firefighters could get a better handle on the fire as weather conditions improved, but the fire would continue for some time because it was burning in areas that were difficult to reach.
“I don’t want to give any illusions that this is wrapping up,” he said. “We’re still in the heat of battle, for sure.”
On Monday morning, Nick Tolerico, 27, an online food and candy salesman, was standing with his girlfriend Angelique McClain, 24, across the street from his mother’s home in Highland, where a line of fire started in the hills above Aplin Street and Baseline. the street The city of 55,000 has dense clusters of suburban homes at the foot of the mountains, and fire crews are aiming to keep the flames out of those neighborhoods.
The couple watched as several firefighters doused the hot spot and smoke billowed from smoldering brush nearby.
Several generations of Mr. Tolerico’s family have lived in Highland, even before the city was incorporated in 1987. He said living in the foothills came with its dangers, but he loved it there.
“It’s an okay trade-off for the peace and quiet away from the city and a better community,” Mr. Tolerico said.
Diana Nelson, a school psychologist, saw flames burning in the hills near her home in Highland. The mountain views were one of the reasons she and her husband bought a property there in 2007.
Views of the house, especially for her husband, who has died, are “the end of Southern California madness,” M. Nelson, 50, said. “It’s been great living here.”
“This is heartbreaking,” she said Monday as she stood on her porch and gazed out at the black bottom as far as the eye could see. “But this is the price, isn’t it?”
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