Utfattiga städer i skuggan av Mount Shasta. Rustika Gold Rush-städer vid foten av Sierra Nevada. Resortsamhällen med höga dollarpriser vid stranden av Lake Tahoe. Ritzy Los Angeles County förorter.

De kan alla bli nästa paradis.

En McClatchy-analys avslöjar mer än 350, 000 kalifornier bor i städer som nästan helt existerar inom "mycket höga brandriskzoner" - Cal Fires beteckning för platser som är mycket sårbara för förödande skogsbränder. Dessa beteckningar har visat sig vara kusligt förutsägande om några av statens mest destruktiva skogsbränder under de senaste åren, inklusive lägerelden, det värsta i statens historia.

Nästan hela Paradiset är färgat med knallrött på Cal Fire -kartan - praktiskt taget var hela staden i riskzonen innan lägerbranden härjade i november förra året, brände de flesta hem i dess väg och dödade 85 människor.

Malibu, där Woolsey Fire brände mer än 400 hem förra året, faller också inom mycket höga riskzoner. Liksom den lilla staden Cobb i Lake County, varav mycket förstördes av Valley Fire 2015.

"Det finns många paradiser där ute, "sa Max Moritz, en brandspecialist vid UC Santa Barbara.

Allt sagt, mer än 2,7 miljoner kalifornier bor i områden med mycket hög brandfara, från släpvagnar utanför tysta grusvägar i skogen till herrgårdar i delstatens största städer, enligt analysen, som är baserad på 2010 års folkräkningsdata på blocknivå. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection säger att dess kartor visar platser där skogsbränder sannolikt kommer att vara extrema på grund av faktorer inklusive vegetation och topografi.

Kartorna är inte perfekta i sin förmåga att förutsäga var en brand kommer att vara destruktiv. Till exempel, Coffey Park-kvarteren i Santa Rosa är inte i en särskilt hög riskzon, men kraftfulla vindar tryckte in Tubbs-elden i den delen av staden, i stort sett utjämna kvarteret i oktober 2017.

Coffey Park byggdes "med noll hänsyn till brand, sa Chris Dicus, en skogs- och brandexpert vid Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. "Eld var i bergen - det fanns ingen hänsyn till att eld skulle korsa (motorväg) 101."

Cal Fire gör nya brandfarokartor - klara om ett år eller så - som kommer att innehålla regionala vindmönster och andra klimatfaktorer. Sålänge, experter säger att de nuvarande kartorna, skapades för ungefär ett decennium sedan, ger fortfarande en viktig guide för att förutsäga var skogsbränder kan orsaka störst skada, på samma sätt markerar översvämningskartor områden som kan drabbas hårdast under kraftiga stormar.

De riskgrupper som identifierats av McClatchy bör också fungera som en utgångspunkt för att prioritera hur Kalifornien ska spendera pengar på ombyggnader och andra brandsäkerhetsprogram, Sa Moritz.

Kaliforniens toppmoderna byggregler hjälper till att skydda hem från skogsbränder i de mest utsatta områdena, säger experter. Men koderna gäller bara nybyggnation. Ett lagförslag som infördes av Assemblyman Jim Wood skulle ge kontanter för att hjälpa kalifornier att bygga om äldre hem.

"Detta kommer att gå långt mot dessa olika kommuner (för att visa) att de förtjänar finansiering, "Sa Moritz.

McClatchy identifierade mer än 75 städer med befolkning över 1, 000 där, som paradiset, minst 90 procent av invånarna bor i Cal Fire "zoner med mycket hög brandrisk."

Här är ögonblicksbilder av 10, och de unika utmaningar de står inför:

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Shingletown:ett miniatyrparadis

Befolkning (2010)—2, 283 ' I zon med mycket hög brandrisk—2, 283

Shingletown är mindre än en tiondel av Paradisets storlek men medför förmodligen lika stor risk.

Som paradiset, det oinkorporerade samhället sitter på toppen av en ås, och är täckt av höga träd och tjock borste - ingredienser för en stor löpeld. Shingletown hette ursprungligen Shingle Camp, för de arbetare som kapade taklameller från timmer för att förse gruvarbetare under Guldrushetstiden.

"Vi odlar träd som ingen gör något här uppe, "sa Tom Twist, medlem i Shingletown Fire Safe Council, en volontärorganisation. Vrida, som har bott i samhället av och till sedan 1970 -talet, sa att när vädret är varmt kommer han att gå sin egendom, dra upp plantor i ett nästan meningslöst försök att eliminera potentiella bränslen.

"Jag kommer att dra upp 20 eller 30 plantor om dagen ur jorden, " sa han. "Det är nästan som när jag går dit, det är 20 eller 30. När jag går tillbaka, det finns ytterligare 20 eller 30."

Precis som Paradiset, att komma undan åsen i en eld i snabb rörelse skulle inte vara lätt; Shingletowns huvuddrag är slingrande, smala riksväg 44. Och, som i paradiset, närvaron av en äldre befolkning skulle försvåra evakueringen; Shingletowns medianålder är 61 år, enligt folkräkningssiffror.

Det är inte konstigt att när guvernör Gavin Newsom beordrade Cal Fire att ta fram en lista över brådskande brandsäkerhetsprojekt, en plan för att trimma 1, 124 hektar växtlighet längs Highway 44 kom upp som högsta prioritet av 35 projekt runt om i staten.

Lokalbefolkningen säger att de är glada att staten uppmärksammar ett problem de känner alltför väl. Samhället var tvungen att evakuera när Ponderosa-branden, startade av ett blixtnedslag, drabbades 2012. Branden brann 27, 676 tunnland - 43 kvadratkilometer - och tända 52 bostäder i närheten.

"Vi är väl medvetna om farorna här uppe, " sa Twist.

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Nevada City:pittoresk och riskabel

Befolkning (2010) —3, 068 ' I zon med mycket hög brandrisk—3, 064

Sedan lägerbranden Vicky Guyette har sett den 1 tunnland stora delen av otrimmad borste bakom sin mammas viktorianska hem i Nevada City som mer än bara en oattraktiv olägenhet.

Nu, borsten är olycksbådande – en antändningskälla som kan flamma upp det hem som byggdes 1859 och som hennes familj har bott i i fem generationer.

Samma oro gäller även för cedrar, tallar och borstar som täcker kullarna runt denna stad vid foten av cirka 3, 100 personer, många av dem bor eller arbetar i träbyggnader med anor från guldrushens era.

"Det är väldigt läskigt, speciellt eftersom det är en så söt liten stad jag har bott i hela mitt liv, " sa Guyette nyligen när hon gick nerför stadens historiska Broad Street, som ser ut som att det föll ur ett foto från en museiutställning.

Stadens tjänstemän är överens om att de trädbevuxna drar, branta sluttningar, smala bostadsgator, gamla hem och tjocka trädkronor i urbana som definierar stadens karaktär gör det också särskilt utsatt om en eld brinner igenom.

"Nevada Citys enskilt största risk för människoliv och ekonomiska förluster är brand, "Det står i Nevada Citys plan för riskreducering.

Under de senaste decennierna, staden har också haft några närapåolyckor med brand, inklusive ett stort nära samtal.

1988, kraftiga vindar drev 49er Fire genom 52 kvadratkilometer i västra Nevada County, brinner 312 byggnader och dussintals bilar.

"Då ansågs det vara en avvikande händelse, "sade Billy Spearing från Fire Safe Council i Nevada County." Det var inte normalt för dem då. "

Med sådana bränder som blir det nya normala, Cal Fire planerar att skära en 1, 802 hektar stor brandpaus i sydvästra Nevada County i terräng som inte har brunnit på ett sekel, hjälpa till att skydda både Nevada City och det intilliggande samhället Grass Valley, hem till fler än 12, 000.

Nevada City inledde också en online "Goat Fund Me" -kampanj för att samla in $ 25, 000 för att hyra bönder för att använda sina getter för att äta tät borste i mer än 450 hektar av stadens ägda grönbälte.

The goats recently chewed a swath through Pioneer Park near Margaret Rodda's Victorian home, which sits on a steep draw above a creek. But she's still worried.

"All it takes is a drunk with a cigarette, " Hon sa.

The goats inspired Guyette. She said she might spend the $500 to put a herder's goats to work on the thorny thicket of blackberries behind her mother's house.

"We need to get rid of them, " Hon sa.

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Colfax:Fire is on everyone's minds

Population (2010)—1, 963 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone —1, 963

On his first full day in office, Newsom visited the Cal Fire station in Colfax to announce new initiatives on wildfire safety. As he spoke to reporters, surrounded by first responders, he was standing in a city that could burn any summer.

"The people who live here have a true understanding, " said Colfax City Manager Wes Heathcock. "It's always on the back of people's minds, especially with the most recent fires, the Camp Fire. We have a similar makeup here."

At night in the summer, Aimee Costa, who lives on a hill above the elementary school, sometimes keeps her window open, the better to hear ominous sounds.

"You're laying in bed . listening for that lick, that smack, that pop sound, " Costa said, describing the sound flames would make if they were chewing pine needles, brush and leaves.

A former supply hub for gold mining camps, Colfax sits a few miles from the edge of the Tahoe National Forest in the lower-elevation Sierra. It straddles Interstate 80 and serves as the last major stop between the Sacramento metropolitan area and the Lake Tahoe region. Horses graze beside deer on large ranchettes in the rugged brushy canyons along the outskirts of the city.

The terrain poses a major fire risk.

In July 2015, the Lowell Fire erupted near Colfax and chewed up thousands of acres along the north side of the freeway, forcing evacuations in adjacent Nevada County. In the years since, Heathcock said the city has been working with state officials on "fuelbreak" projects, including a spot near the high school and elementary school, which has been eyed as an evacuation site.

Gene Mapa, who lived in Paradise and escaped the Camp Fire with some family photographs—and nothing else—has relocated to Colfax, where he already owned a second home. But he knows he hasn't escaped the fire risk; his property just outside the city limits would be threatened by a windy firestorm like the one that engulfed Paradise.

"With that wind, there would be no stopping it anywhere, " Mapa said.

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Kings Beach:Tourists seek fun, bring fire danger

Population (2010)—3, 796 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone —3, 796

Situated on the pristine north shore of Lake Tahoe, Kings Beach is one of the most heavily visited vacation spots in Northern California.

That's a big part of the problem.

Because so much of the population comes and goes, it becomes harder to get people to treat wildfire risk with the respect it deserves, said Erin Holland, a spokeswoman for the North Tahoe Fire Protection District. One of the district's six stations is in Kings Beach.

"It is definitely a challenge because we have so many homes that are vacation homes, " she said. "It's really a challenge to educate those visitors . They want to have a camp fire."

Tahoe's vulnerability to major fires was brought home dramatically in recent years. The Angora Fire in 2007, while it was confined to the south shore area, left physical and emotional scars on the entire basin after burning through 3, 100 acres.

Holland said getting the region's property owners and visitors to observe "defensible space" regulations is particularly difficult. Those rules call for clearing brush 100 feet around buildings and include stricter rules regarding vegetation immediately adjacent to structures.

Violators can be subject to citations, but "the goal is to really educate people, to get people complying, " Holland said. "We go the education route rather than the citation route."

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Pollock Pines:Do the transplants get it?

Population (2010)—6, 877 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—6, 533

Just off Highway 50, a few miles from the tourist haven of Apple Hill, Pollock Pines lures transplants from coastal California, mainly retirees drawn to the lovely stands of trees in the foothill community at the edge of the Eldorado National Forest.

Heather Campbell only wishes the newbies had a better understanding of what all that timber represents.

Campbell, a retired U.S. Forest Service employee who's lived in Pollock Pines since the 1990s, is the head of the Pollock Pines-Camino Fire Safe Council, a volunteer group.

In the past few years her organization has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly from the state's "cap and trade" carbon trading program, to trim vegetation on the ridgeline south of Highway 50.

That's all well and good, Hon sa, but more needs to be done. And the people of Pollock Pines, including the newcomers, have to realize what's at stake.

"Här, everybody allows all the saplings and brush to grow and they don't weed it out, " she said. "All these roads are incredibly dangerous, when it's so easy to take out pruners. Take out your pruners!"

She said memories are still vivid of the Sand Fire in 2014. That fire burned 4, 200 acres and 20 homes and came dangerously close to forcing a major evacuation in Pollock Pines and surrounding communities.

"They were going to evacuate 9, 000 personer, " she said. "They were predicting the fire to go to 27, 000 hektar, instead of the 4, 000 they stopped it at."

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Arnold:Trees are falling in Big Trees country

Population (2010)—3, 843 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—3, 843

In the community that serves as gateway to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, residents didn't always applaud when officials began mapping plans to thin dense stands of trees to reduce fire risk.

"Arnold resisted this for a long time because people love their trees, " said Steve Wilensky, a former Calaveras County supervisor who works with nonprofits to improve fire safety in the Sierra.

After years of protests, Arnold's residents got a major wake-up call in 2015. The Butte Fire, caused by power lines, took out 549 homes in nearby communities. Two people died.

"If the weather hadn't changed, they'd be gone, " Wilensky said of Arnold. "You've got a real parallel with Paradise in some ways . It's a place that is really highly threatened."

Arnold sits on a ridge, surrounded by a dense forest of drought- and beetle-killed trees. Powerful wind gusts can funnel fire up rugged brushy canyons.

A key difference between Paradise and Arnold is that as many as 45 percent of the dwellings are vacation homes, which can sometimes make it a challenge to get out-of-town homeowners to do brush clearing, sa lokala tjänstemän.

Wilensky said momentum to reduce fire risk has built since the Butte Fire. More than $15 million in state and federal funds have gone to thinning dangerous overgrowth in the region, Wilensky said.

One project includes using bulldozer lines that were cut during the Butte Fire to expand a fire break that stretches to town.

"Arnold is the anchor end of this project, " Wilensky said.

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Wofford Heights:Apathy in a danger zone?

Population (2010)—2, 201 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—2, 147

The same powerful desert gusts that attract wind surfers to Kern County's Lake Isabella make the lakeside community of Wofford Heights particularly at risk for wildfire. So does the adjacent Sequoia National Forest, which has been plagued by drought and tree-killing beetles.

Yet some feel that the region isn't doing nearly enough to combat the threat.

"We could do a hell of a lot more than we're doing, " said Judy Hyatt, who lived in the area for 15 years and served as president of the region's fire safe council. The volunteer group disbanded in recent years from what she and others described as a lack of interest.

2016, the Lake Isabella region suffered through the Erskine and Cedar fires, which burned more than 77, 000 acres and more than 300 structures. An elderly couple was killed when they were trapped by the Erskine Fire.

According to census figures, the median age of those living in Wofford Heights is 62, and many live in places with poor escape routes.

"Some of those mobiles up there, honest to God, I think they've dropped them out of the sky, " Hyatt said. "The roads are so narrow, and it really just presents an obstacle and the only way to really get to it is by air. That is when people start to die."

Hyatt said the loss of the nonprofit Kern River Fire Safe Council she once headed doesn't bode well for the community. She said the council organized wood-chipping drives to encourage residents to remove wood debris and sought grants for fuel breaks and other thinning projects.

She said too many locals have grown complacent.

"Fire prevention is a nebulous thing, " she said. "It's hard to quantify, until there's a damned fire that takes out everything."

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La Cañada Flintridge:Is aggressive fire prevention enough?

Population (2010)—20, 048 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—20, 048

Carol Settles and her family evacuated their home in La Cañada Flintridge during the Station Fire in 2009. But she isn't terribly worried about a repeat performance—even though her home is on a dead-end street below a brushy hillside of the Angeles National Forest. Large electrical transmission lines run along the wooded draw behind her home.

"We've never seen a spark, " Settles said, referring to the power lines. "We've never seen any of that."

Best-known as home to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the outskirts of Pasadena, the upper middle-class city has an aggressive fire-prevention program. The Los Angeles County fire department checks properties in Settles' area once a year to make sure vegetation has been cleared and hazardous landscaping hasn't been planted.

Fines can be issued for non-compliance. Nyligen, one of Settles' neighbors had to saw off the top of a pine tree because it was too close to a transmission tower, Hon sa.

Los Angeles County's assistant fire chief, J. Lopez, said La Cañada Flintridge has embraced rigorous fire-safety standards, which include annual landscaping inspections and stringent fire-safe building codes, even for large home remodels. Lopez said La Cañada Flintridge also chose to place the entire city inside a high fire hazard zone, going beyond the recommendation of Cal Fire. That decision translates into citywide enforcement of its fire-resilient building codes.

"That's a very progressive way to look at it, " Lopez said.

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But since 2008, on average only about a dozen new homes have been built in La Cañada Flintridge each year, meaning most of the housing stock was built before the rigorous fire standards were in place.

The city's hazard mitigation plan notes many of those older homes still have "combustible roofing, open eaves, combustible siding, " and they're on "steep, narrow, poorly signed" roads that make evacuations dangerous.

Thomas Caswell, who's lived for four decades on a hilly, narrow, dead-end street not far from city hall, said he knows the greenbelt behind his house where he watches possums, birds and other wildlife also makes the community vulnerable to fire. It's why he says he didn't mind paying when the city told him he needed to hire a tree service to remove dying trees in his front yard.

Fortfarande, he knows such efforts probably wouldn't do much good if the Santa Ana winds pushed a fire into the city. Fire officials said that La Cañada Flintridge could have burned in the Station Fire if the Santa Ana winds hadn't stopped blowing. The fire burned 89 homes in outlying communities and 160, 577 acres of forested lands, the largest fire by land mass in Los Angeles County history.

"Once it comes down the hill, " Caswell said, "nobody is going to be safe."

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Rancho Palos Verdes:Few fears in an affluent suburb

Population (2010)—41, 803 ' In Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone—40, 550

Rancho Palos Verdes holds a dubious honor:It's the most populated city in California to have 90 percent or more of its population living within a "very high fire hazard severity zone." But few residents seem to think their suburb is in the same league as Malibu, where hundreds of homes burned last fall just up the Los Angeles County coastline.

"It's not like living in Malibu, definitivt, " said Gregory Lash as he strolled through a public access walkway in the Trump National Golf Club with his wife, Vivian, on the way to an oceanside park where a pod of dolphins and whales were breaching.

Han lade till, moments later:"Hope that's not naive."

City officials say it's not.

"This being a coastal community, we don't get the type of brush and that kind of fire behavior that you might get in somewhere like Paradise, " said Scott Hale, an assistant fire chief for Los Angeles County. The county leads firefighting efforts on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, whose four affluent communities all fall inside a high fire severity zone.

Locals point out that over the years, the firefighters at the five stations on the peninsula have quickly knocked down the relatively small fires that popped up.

Fortfarande, Rancho Palos Verdes' hazard mitigation plan lists wildfire as a bigger threat to the city than earthquakes, tsunamier och jordskred. Powerful winds that blow from the coast could funnel a fire up the greenbelts that cut through the peninsula's neighborhoods, many of which have opulent homes perched above canyons.

Much of that open space has been preserved by the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, which manages more than 1, 600 acres of land in and around the city. Residents such as Lash love the 42 miles of trails on conservancy lands, but all that undeveloped acreage could ignite, said Gabriella Yap, deputy city manager.

"You're trying to preserve that, but it also comes with fire risk, " Yap said.

The city's staff supports Southern California Edison's plans to trim vegetation from under the lines that run through some of the open space to reduce fire threats, but the land conservancy is bristling at the loss of native habitats.

"The environmental impact of that is really significant, " said Adrienne Mohan, the conservancy's executive director.

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Harbison Canyon:Will it burn a third time?

Population (2010)—3, 841 ' In Very High Hazard Fire Severity Zone—3, 841

Every 30 years or so, a massive fire blows through Harbison Canyon, 30 miles northeast of San Diego.

The 1970 Laguna Fire destroyed much of the unincorporated town that sits inside the canyon and shares its name. Harbison Canyon was rebuilt again after the Cedar Fire burned through in 2003, destroying 287 of the 388 homes.

Rick Halsey of the Chaparral Institute said the canyon is a painful example of how development has been allowed to continue practically unchecked for decades into some of California's most fire-prone places.

"You want to create a geographical hotspot for fire, you couldn't put it in a better place, " said Halsey, whose environmentalist organization was founded to fight calls for clearing hundreds of square miles of wild lands following the Cedar Fire. "It's like a bowling alley for the Santa Ana winds."

That sort of talk makes longtime resident Mary Manning cringe.

She worries that focusing on the canyon's fire risk creates the impression that the community she loves can't be saved from the next catastrophe. She said her community could be made more safe if state and local officials would invest in infrastructure and fire prevention that matched the rates of development she's seen over the years. Till exempel, the side streets in Harbison Canyon are narrow. Vissa, like Manning's, remain unpaved despite decades of building.

"There were five houses, now there are 35, " she said of the street she's lived on since 1975.

Manning notes it was only two years ago that the local fire station became staffed 24 hours a day—14 years after the Cedar Fire. Inside the station, Dave Nissen, the Cal Fire official who oversees firefighting in the area, said there are a number of challenges to fighting a fire in the canyon, including the narrow roads and houses stacked close together.

Nissen said firefighters reduce the risks by inspecting lots every year to make sure they're not overgrown. On that front, Harbison Canyon's residents don't seem to need too much prodding, judging from the roar of chain saws and weed trimmers echoing through the canyon on a recent spring weekday afternoon.

© 2019 Associated Press. Alla rättigheter förbehållna.