News

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is monitoring hot, dry and windy weather over the next few days and expects to shut off power for safety in nine Northern California counties starting Monday evening. The affected counties include Butte, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sutter, and Yuba counties in the Sierra foothills and Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties in the North Bay.

Monday’s potential Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) could affect approximately 124,000 customers in the nine counties. The largest number of those affected, 33,500, are in Sonoma County.

The potential fire weather event is forecasted to begin around 8:00 pm on Monday, and last until 9:00 am on Tuesday, September 24.

PG&E will decide on whether to proceed with the Public Safety Power Shutoff late Monday morning. If power is shut off for these counties, it should take place during the late afternoon or evening hours on Monday.

A similar event is forecast Tuesday evening, September 24 and could bring elevated fire conditions until 10:00 am on Wednesday, September 25.

If power is shut off, PG&E plans to have crews out to make any needed repairs and restore power once it is safe to do so.

Stay informed on the latest Public Safety Power Shutoff updates at www.pge.com/pspsupdates. You can also enter your address to find out if your home or business is served by an electric line that may be impacted by this event.

It’s also a good idea to update your contact information at www.pge.com/mywildfirealerts or by calling 1-866-743-6589 during normal business hours. PG&E uses this information to alert customers in advance of turning off their electric service for safety, when and where possible.

Prepare for and practice an emergency plan to keep yourself and your family emergency-ready and safe during an outage. Keep in mind family members who are elderly, younger children and pets. Information and tips including a safety plan checklist are available at www.pge.com/psps.

Dobbs, along with her late husband John Kramer, founded the organization in 1981. KRCB TV 22 went on the air in 1984 as a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a designation the station still holds.

“Under Dobbs’ leadership, we have grown into a multi-station, broadcast, and digital producer and presenter of educational and relevant content for the Bay Area and audiences across the United States,” LaShelle commented. He added that, “Our goal remains that of Nancy’s original vision – to use media for the public good presenting children’s educational programs, environmental initiatives, community health programs, bilingual efforts, as well as political and election coverage.”

In 1994, Dobbs and staff launched KRCB FM 91.1, a member station of National Public Radio (NPR), serving the greater North Bay. In 2018, Dobbs and the Board of Directors of Northern California Public Media acquired and started operating KCSM TV (now KPJK TV, named for Professor Kramer) on July 31, 2018. Fifty-three years of service to the Bay Area will continue through this timely acquisition.

Dobbs commented that, “Darren brings many years of public media production and management experience to NorCal Public Media, as well as a strategic vision of how to best serve the community.”

LaShelle joined Northern California Public Media in 2014 as Content Manager and the Senior Producer of all projects produced by the organization. LaShelle oversees the content development of television, radio, marketing, news, and digital initiatives.

Before coming to NCPM, LaShelle was the Director of Content and Creative Services and Executive Producer at WGTE Public Media in Toledo, Ohio. He previously served in a variety of positions over a 19-year career with the PBS and NPR affiliated WGTE as well as a promotions producer at Fox TV in Toledo, Ohio and as a creative services producer/director at NBC TV9 in the Wheeling/Steubenville market. He holds a BA in Broadcast Media from Marietta College, in Marietta, Ohio.

About Northern California Public Media
In order to encourage full participation in society and community, Northern California Public Media provides educational, informational and cultural telecommunication services in partnership with our community. Our motto “Telling Our Stories - Connecting our Communities,” embodies our mission to bring people together, through educational media and digital experiences, to discuss issues and gain understanding. Northern California Public Media consists of KRCB TV in the North Bay, KPJK TV in the South Bay, KRCB FM Radio 91 in Sonoma County, norcalpublicmedia.org, and the Northern California Public Media free digital app.

We provide daily coronavirus updates on KRCB radio 91. Tune in at 9 a.m. and 6:44 p.m. for the latest local news. Here's our update for Wednesday, June 10.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore has been doing an informative podcast about Coronavirus called Public Health on Call.

This week, Dr. Josh Sharfstein, host of the podcast, interviewed George Escobar, chief of programs and services at CASA, an immigrant rights organization, about why the Latinx community is disproportionately affected by Coronavirus. 

Listen to the full episode, The Disproportionate Impacts of COVID-19 on the Latinx Immigrant Community. 

Yesterday, the Latino leadership organization Los Cien presented a virtual town hall on the disproportionate burden that COVID-19 is placing on the Latinx community in Sonoma County.

Guests were Sonoma County's Department of Health Services Director Barbie Robinson and Public Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase.

Here's a selection from Dr. Mase's presentation. The slides for this section are below.

With extreme temperatures forecast today and tomorrow, Rohnert Park is opening two cooling centers. One at the Rohnert Park Community Center, the other at the Rohnert Park Senior Center.

Rohnert Park Community Center is located at 5401 Snyder Ln. Meeting Room #2 and the Lounge are available today Tuesday, September 24, now until 9:00 pm tonight and Wednesday, September 25, from 8:30 am – 7:00 pm (Lounge) and 8:30 am – 9:00 pm (Meeting Room #2).

Rohnert Park Senior Center is at 6800 Hunter Drive, Suite A. The drop-in area is available today, Tuesday, September 24, now until 4:00 pm this afternoon. On Wednesday September 25, it will be available from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm.

Hot Weather Safety Tips:

• • Drink plenty of water
• • Limit outdoor activity
• • Do not leave children or pets in vehicles
• • Check on those at higher risk including the elderly or ill

(Photo: Rohnert Park Community Center – Angela Hart)

As part of our continuing coverage of health in Roseland, KRCB’s Adia White attended a class called “Cultivating for Health” at Bayer Neighborhood Park and Gardens. She has more on Maria de los Angeles Quiñones stands in the medicinal herb garden at Bayer Farms. Photo Credit: Adia Whitehow this group is taking control of their health by growing, preparing and using medicinal plants.

This report is part of our ongoing partnership with radio station KBBF. It is supported by a grant from the USC-Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Impact Fund.

Escucha en Español/Listen in Spanish

A Heat Advisory for the North Bay has been issued by the National Weather Service for Tuesday, September 24 and Wednesday, September 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. each day. The hottest temperatures are expected Tuesday with Santa Rosa possibly reaching a high of 103 degrees.

Although the current forecasted conditions would not typically require the activation of a cooling center, the City of Santa Rosa will open one given the risks associated with a potential Public Safety Power Shutoff. The City of Santa Rosa will open a cooling center from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Finley Community Center located at 2060 West College Avenue on Tuesday, September 24 and Wednesday, September 25.  

Residents planning to visit the City’s cooling center should plan for their visit. Books, games, and laptops are allowed at the cooling centers. For the experience of all residents, please use headphones for listening. Free WiFi is available, but no broadcast television and your ability to charge devices may be limited. Food will not be provided, and kitchen access will not be available during this time. Residents may bring food that is ready to eat. Due to space limitations, please limit your personal items to one small tote and daypack per person. Only service animals will be permitted inside of the cooling center.  Please note that the City of Santa Rosa is not responsible for lost or stolen items.

The NWS has issued a Red Flag Warning for the upper elevation of Sonoma County from 9:00 p.m. tonight (9/23) to 5:00 a.m. Wednesday (9/25). Gusty north to northeast winds up to 40 mph are forecasted with low humidity levels.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department, in partnership with agencies across Sonoma County has increased firefighters and fire-fighting equipment for the duration of the critical fire weather (Red Flag Warning) due to the high-fire risk.

Residents should be mindful of the heat and follow these safety tips:

• • Never leave children, seniors or pets in a parked car during periods of intense summer heat.
• • Drink fluids, particularly water, even if you do not feel thirsty. Your body needs water to keep cool.
• • If possible, stay out of the sun and in air-conditioned areas.
• • Mow fields in the mornings before 10AM, but never when it’s windy or excessively dry. Lawn mowers are designed to mow lawns, not weeds or dry grass. Metal blades striking rocks can create sparks and start fires.

In addition to the designated cooling center at Finley Community Center, Recreation & Parks operates several air-conditioned lobbies that are open to the public if citizens need a place to stay cool during the day, including:

• • Finley Recreation Complex - 2060 West College Avenue – 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., M-F
• • Steele Lane Community Center - 415 Steele Lane - 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., M-F
• • Person Senior Wing – 2060 West College Ave – 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., M-F

The fibrous hemp plant — a botanical cousin of cannabis — has long been used for making paper, textiles, ropes and many other products. In combination with hydraulic lime, chipped hemp stalks are also being made into an intriguing building material known as "hempcrete."  A small building site southwest of Sebastopol is the region's first experiment in using the modern version of this ancient building material.  Reporter Bruce Robinson has the inside story. Architect Steve Sheldon stands in front of his hempcrete building project. Credit: Bruce Robinson

Sonoma County tested the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system in five areas of the county on Wednesday Sept. 12. Wireless alerts are sent out as text messages to all mobile phones in a selected area.

The areas involved in Wednesday’s test were Guerneville, Penngrove, Glen Ellen, Healdsburg, and Roseland. James Gore, chair of Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors, spoke about the preliminary results of the test at a press conference on Wednesday, “The systems went out, they all worked. But, there was significant spillover we can see already; where we targeted a specific area, for instance in Sonoma valley, and people got notifications in Petaluma, Rohnert Park and other areas.”

Meanwhile some who should have received the test alert did not. Lynda Hopkins represents district five on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. At Wednesday’s press conference she said her constituents from Guerneville reported that they did not receive any mobile alert.  

According to the Sonoma County Emergency Operations Center, this was the first Wireless Emergency Alert test of this scale on the west coast. You can watch the press conference about the test on Sonoma County's Facebook page. 

Sonoma County is asking residents to take a survey to evaluate the alert. The survey is available online at https://socoemergency.org/.

The Wireless Emergency Alert test took place in five areas of Sonoma County. Credit: Max Pixel

PG&E has informed us they will be replacing a power pole that serves our transmitter site. This work will result in a “service interruption.” We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause our KRCB FM listeners. While the situation is beyond our control, we appreciate PG&E giving us advance notice of this outage.

There are, of course, many ways to receive our signal: We will continue to broadcast on 90.9 FM for the greater Santa Rosa area. You can also hear us on Xfinity channel 961, and through our free mobile app available for your mobile device.

If all goes well, we expect full power restoration by 4:00 pm.

Thank you for your patience and understanding through this process.

"Homes destroyed by the LNU Lighting Complex Fire are interspersed with untouched homes above Lake Berryessa, a resort area and water supply reservoir, on Sept. 21, 2020. After the fire in August, residents were advised not to drink or boil the tap water because of concerns about benzene and other contaminants. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters"For more than a month after a wildfire raced through his lakeside community and destroyed his Napa County home, Kody Petrini couldn’t drink the water from the taps. He wasn’t even supposed to boil it.

And, worried about harming his 16-month-old, Petrini wouldn’t wash his youngest son Levi with it. Instead, he took the extraordinary precaution of bathing him in bottled water.

Among the largest wildfires in California history, the LNU Lightning Complex fires killed five people and destroyed nearly 1,500 structures — including whole blocks of the Berryessa Highlands neighborhood where Petrini’s home stood. 

Camped out in a trailer on his in-laws’ nearby lot, the 32-year-old father of two, along with all of his neighbors, was warned not to drink the water or boil it because it could be contaminated with dangerous compounds like benzene that seep into pipes in burned areas.

When wildfires spread across California, they leave a cascade of water problems in their wake: Some communities have their drinking water poisoned by toxic substances. Others wrestle with ash and debris washed into reservoirs and lakes. And many living in remote stretches of the state struggle with accessing enough water to fight fires. 

Drinking water has been contaminated with hazardous chemicals after at least three California wildfires in recent years: in Santa Rosa after the Tubbs Fire in 2017, in Paradise after the Camp Fire in 2018 and now in parts of the San Lorenzo Valley burned by the CZU Lightning Complex Fires that began in August. 

The cost of fixing the damage to water systems: up to $150 million in just one small town. 

Towns and water agencies also are grappling with advice to give residents in fire-ravaged areas, who are confused by warnings that seem to continuously change about whether their water is safe. 

The month-long wait for results of testing left Petrini and his neighbors in a frustrated limbo, forced to rely upon bottled water distributed by the county. At the end of September, testing in Berryessa Highlands finally revealed no detectable amounts of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical. One block — ironically on Clearwater Court — had elevated levels of metals including lead in one hydrant, so residents are still advised not to drink their water. 

“If the water is messed up, we understand. We had a catastrophic fire up here, we understand that. But just let us know why,” Petrini said. “Is it even okay for us to bathe our baby in?”

"Kody Petrini with his sons, Levi, 16 months, and Steven, 11, in Berryessa Highlands on Sept. 21, 2020. Petrini lost his home in the LNU Lighting Complex Fires and for more than a month afterward was afraid to bathe Levi with tap water for fear of contaminants. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters"

In a state plagued by water shortages, rural California has suffered a cascade of water woes in the wake of wildfires that is likely to happen again and again as climate change primes the West to burn.

The problems now encountered in California are far beyond the scope of regulations protecting drinking water, said Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Drinking Water.

“The Safe Drinking Water Act doesn’t have a clause like, ‘This is what you do in a fire when a community is completely burned to the ground,’” he said.

‘We’re going to see more systems like this’

There are 23 major wildfires burning in a record-breaking season that has torn through more than 4 million acres of California, killing 31 people and destroying more than 8,400 structures. 

Since the 1980s, climate change has more than doubled the hot and dry conditions that combine to create extreme fire weather, according to new research. 

At the same time, more Californians are in harm’s way: between 1990 and 2010, the number of houses built at the edge of nature increased by more than a third. And 640,000 to 1.2 million new homes could pop up in the state’s highest fire risk areas by 2050.

That means more fire survivors could come home to find their pipes burned and their water undrinkable. 

“It’s safe to bet that with this year’s fire season the way it is, winds picking up and the magnitude of fire that we’ve got, we’re going to see more (water) systems like this,” said Daniel Newton, assistant deputy director of the state water board’s Division of Drinking Water. “The number of fire impacts I am starting to hear throughout the state is staggering,” he added.

The threat to water in the West doesn’t stop when the flames go out. Roughly two-thirds of its water supply flows from forests that can burn. And uncontrolled conflagrations can increase erosion and pollutants that rush into the lakes and reservoirs supplying Californians with water. Researchers project that fire could more than double the sediment clogging a third of Western watersheds by 2050.

“From a water perspective, this is just when the problems are all about to begin — when we put the fire out,” said Kevin Bladon, associate professor of forest ecohydrology and watershed science at Oregon State University. “We can see effects (on water) persist for decades.”

Problems in the pipes

The first clues that fires could contaminate pipes with chemicals came in the fall of 2017 in Santa Rosa, where the Tubbs Fire had destroyed roughly 3,000 homes and commercial buildings. 

Soon after residents returned to the remaining houses, Santa Rosa Water received a complaint: The water smelled and tasted strange, according to city memo.

Testing revealed contaminants, including benzene as high as 40,000 times the state’s limits, according to a recent study led by Andrew Whelton, an associate professor of civil, environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University.

Long-term exposure to benzene, a component of crude oil and gasoline, is a well-proven cause of leukemia, and immediate, high exposure can cause dizziness and stomach ailments. 

The source of the contamination, the city’s investigation concluded, was the wildfires. Burned plastic piping can release benzene and other chemicals, as can homes going up in smoke. Water systems depressurized during fires may suck in those compounds, which then soak into plastic pipes and coat metals and other materials. 

The damage can linger for years because cleaning it up requires removing poisoned pipes and extensively flushing the system, according to Whelton.

“There is no good approach,” Whelton said. “The rudimentary approach of just flushing water is there because nobody’s really developed better solutions.” 

Drinking water in Paradise also was contaminated with chemicals including dangerous levels of benzene — at least 2,200 times the state limit in one sample, Whelton’s study reports — when the Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings in Butte County in 2018. Nearly two years later, the town’s utility warns that water connections to unoccupied houses and empty lots may still be contaminated.   

The tab for combating Paradise’s contamination has hit an estimated $50 million, plus $80 to $100 million for additional repairs, Mickey Rich, information systems manager with the Paradise Irrigation District, told CalMatters. The district is seeking federal and state emergency funding, and has tapped into insurance to help pay for the repairs.

“Our goal is to get everything paid for by emergency funds that we can. We don’t feel like our customers should have to pay for any of this damage,” Rich said. 

Confusing, shifting warnings

Napa County engineering manager Christopher Silke, who also oversees the private contractor operating Berryessa Highlands’ tiny water district, hopes that his team’s quick action saved the community’s water system from a similar fate.

After the fire, the lines serving burnt properties were capped, leaks were fixed and the system repressurized and flushed. The district issued a warning to boil the water before drinking it because of potential bacteria. 

But two weeks later, the state warned of the potential for contamination with chemicals like benzene, and told the district to change the warning to caution against drinking or boiling the water. The notice the district issued said that people may also want to limit showering and hot water use. 

Silke immediately sent out orders to pull out the water meters where public and private plumbing intersect, and retrofit meter boxes to allow flushing but prevent backflow from the burned properties. 

Although drinking water is uncontaminated with benzene and similar chemicals so far, Silke pledged to continue monitoring. “This is public health,” he said. “We need to be vigilant.”

Advice to residents also shifted after the CZU Lightning Complex Fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. The San Lorenzo Valley Water District issued a ‘do not drink/do not boil’ warning, then updated the guidance days later to recommend avoiding baths and limiting showers to lukewarm water. Residents were confused, asking at a public meeting why the district didn’t warn them against washing with the water right away. 

A sign warning residents not to drink the water posted along Steele Canyon Road at the entrance to Berryessa Highlands on Sept. 21, 2020. Following the lighting complex fires in August, residents have been advised not to drink or bathe in the local water out of concerns for benzene and other contaminants. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters"

Whelton, the environmental engineer at Purdue, would have preferred immediate warnings against showering and bathing, particularly since one San Lorenzo Valley neighborhood had 42 times more benzene than state limits allow. 

Chemical levels dropped below the state’s standard after the pipes were flushed, Newton said. But Whelton said that testing after wildfires should continue for long periods, and should be expanded to more chemicals.

He also worries that the failure to rapidly warn people against bathing in potentially contaminated water led to precisely the predicament Petrini found himself in when weighing how to wash baby Levi. 

“You have to issue water advisories and orders that don’t allow infants and children to be exposed to contaminated water,” Whelton said. “This isn’t complicated. After a disaster, the infrastructure may be damaged, you issue a ‘do not use’ order.” 

Stefan Cajina, north coastal section chief of the water board’s drinking water division, said that drinking water officials usually reserve issuing stricter guidance around showering and bathing for when they know for certain the water is contaminated. But “that has turned out to be a really confusing and uncomfortable message for the public to hear,” Cajina said.

Now the state is considering reversing that approach to recommend water systems start with more stringent cautions, and scale them back as test results show the water is safe. 

“Bottom line, water systems may want to be told what to do in these situations, and we do our best to provide solid guidance, but they are ultimately responsible,” he said.

When the fires stop, the rains start

As California heads into the rainy season, the threats to drinking water will be amplified. Rains may extinguish wildfires, but they can also wash contaminants into water sources.  

“Really what’s going to determine how ugly things get and how concerning they get for both the health of our ecosystems and for our communities are those first rain events that we’re going to get this fall, and really the first couple of years,” Oregon State University’s Bladon said. Particularly if vegetation hasn’t had a chance to regrow on slopes scoured by wildfires.

Fires kill plants, increasing runoff and accelerating snowmelt. Burning soil can also change its structure, trigger erosion and leave behind layers of ash and debris that flow into streams and lakes.

“Every drop of water in a watershed basically is moving towards that outlet,” said Newsha Ajami, director of Urban Water Policy at Stanford University. “And if they’re not cleaned up, all those pollutants and contaminants and toxins can end up in our water system.”

Sediment slicking down fire-denuded hills can fill reservoirs, squeezing out space for the water. In Santa Barbara County, the Gibraltar Reservoir has lost roughly 50% of its storage capacity over the past 20 years, largely due to increased sedimentation from wildfires, according to Joshua Haggmark, Santa Barbara’s water resources manager. 

After the 2007 Zaca Fire, the organic material clouding Cachuma Lake jumped by 165%. And it still hasn’t returned to historic lows, Haggmark said. Near Redding, water from Whiskeytown Lake grew roughly 20 times dirtier after the Carr Fire. 

All that material can challenge downstream treatment plants to cope with the added mud and altered water chemistry, and it may fuel algal blooms. But adding chlorine to treat the water can kick off chemical reactions with all the additional organic matter to form disinfection byproducts linked to health problems, including bladder cancer.

More of the ingredients that form these disinfection byproducts were found in Northern California creeks after the Rocky and Wragg fires burned through the region in 2015, according to a recent study. 

In Napa County, Silke has encountered increased sediment repeatedly in Lake Berryessa after previous wildfires, and he’s bracing for problems at the treatment plant in the months ahead. 

"Levi Petrini stands in the ruins of his family's burned Berryessa Highlands home. Photo courtesy of Kody Petrini."

“If you took a coffee filter, and tried to make several batches of coffee with that filter, what’s going to happen then? It’s going to plug up,” he said. It’s the same with turbid water. 

Producing 100,000 gallons of drinking water from the murky lake can churn out about 40,000 gallons of sludge, he said. And that puts a bigger strain on the wastewater treatment plant, as well. 

Silke has designed a $180,000 treatment step to help the mud and silt settle out of Berryessa Highlands’ water. The cash-strapped water district is looking to California’s Office of Emergency Services for help. 

“We’re going to have to find a way,” Silke said. 

Petrini worries that the wreckage of his home will be among the debris tumbling towards Lake Berryessa this winter if the clean-up process continues to lag.

“Rains are coming soon,” he said. “And if we don’t get our lots situated, it’s going to cost us tens of thousands of more dollars just to get them regraded after the hills start sliding down on themselves.”

Water pressure drops

On a hot September morning, Berryessa Highlands residents gathered outside the volunteer fire station to voice their water woes. A standout concern, particularly from residents who bucked evacuation orders to defend their homes, was the restricted flow from hydrants. 

It happened to Daniel Williams, who helped defend his father Stu’s house. Perched on the roof with a fire hose, Williams, 41, was spraying the embers when the water flow died. 

“It was like, well what else do you want to throw at me? I’m doing everything I can,” he said. “It just made no sense that there’s this big body of water, but we have no water pressure on top of our roof to fight the fire.” 

The Williams’ house survived; at least 93 others did not. Testing in August revealed that five of the development’s 67 hydrants had possible mechanical problems, according to Annamaria Martinez with Napa County. But Napa County Fire Chief Geoff Belyea told CalMatters that despite pressure fluctuations, firefighters had enough water to battle the flames. 

Readouts of the lakeside water treatment plant’s activity show the pumps kept pumping, Silke said. But as water gushed from burned homes and firefighters and residents trained hoses on the flames, the 500,000-gallon ridgetop storage tank that maintains pressure in the pipes dropped to critically low levels, according to Silke. 

“It’s very common that in rural parts of California that water is difficult for us,” said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with CalFire, the state’s firefighting agency. “I’ve been on a number of fires, where communities — even communities you would think are more urban — that just because of the amount of water being used, the water supply and the pressure goes down.”  

It’s why CalFire sends water tenders that can carry water to wildfires, engines are equipped with pumps to pull from lakes and pools and helicopters can swoop in. 

And it’s why CalFire and drinking water officials warn against residents leaving sprinklers on as a fire approaches. Not only does it diminish the water firefighters can use, but it also can prime the depressurized pipes for contamination.

“Rural residential community public water systems were never designed with the intent to provide a line of wildfire defense to save structures,” Silke said. 

Jennifer Clary, California director of the advocacy group Clean Water Action, said “it’s virtually impossible to build a potable water system that can also fight megafires.” Building a distribution system that is too large can allow the water to stagnate in pipes, which allows disinfection byproducts to accumulate, she said.

Stanford’s Ajami said the key will be rebuilding with resilience. “If you’re going back to build these communities, do you really want to build them the way before?” she said. “Isn’t this a new chance to revisit our planning and development practices?”

For Whelton, that means updating building codes to require concrete water meter boxes rather than flammable plastic ones, and valves that prevent water flowing back from burned houses into the public water system. 

Paradise is leading the way to fireproof its water. “You hope no city ever has to go through this. The good that I see is we got a lot of the research done and we have a lot of the answers now,” Rich said. 

The state, too, is working on developing its playbook for water systems to ensure they’re prepared to immediately flush pipes, isolate burned neighborhoods and test for contaminants. 

But getting ahead of the flames is an uphill battle, said the water board’s Polhemus. “We need the fires to quit, before we can even catch our breath.”

"American Canyon CERT members Michael Tadewald, left, and Mary Tabbert, unload cases of water at the Berryessa Highlands fire department on Sept. 21, 2020. Thousands of gallons of water have been distributed to residents since they began in early September. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters"