A new study explores how wildfire poses 'potentially cataclysmic danger' in areas of Anchorage with limited road escape routes, and maps where each neighborhood’s highest-risk areas are.
For some neighborhoods, the risk is stark: For example, Bear Valley’s Clark Road is the only exit route for about 200 homes.
The risk mounts with each passing year, the report concludes: Lengthening fire seasons, natural increase in vegetation loads, climate change driven weather patterns and dwindling budgets for fire mitigation “pose an increasingly higher risk for the potential loss of life, homes, and infrastructure.” Schmidt and See’s report says it was partly inspired by the specter of the Paradise fire, which killed 85 people in a California town — many as they tried to evacuate on the only road out of town. The same thing could happen at Milepost 3 of Eagle River Road or other locations if firefighters couldn’t reach the incident because the road was blocked, the report says.
If a major wildfire unfolded in Anchorage, the city fire department would struggle to stop it without wildland firefighting resources such as helicopters. Schmidt had previously created a wildfire hazard map using 2014 aerial imagery. The map uses vegetation types to show which neighborhoods would be most at risk, and how embers could travel to spark other fires.The McHugh Creek wildfire of 2016, which came within one ridge of homes at the extreme south of Potter Valley Road, was a wake-up call for many, he said. Community councils and neighborhoods talk about the risks. Some even have staged drills like the one See participated in.
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