The Pacific Palisades fire is still raging, yet the inevitable finger-pointing is well underway.
But – as unpleasant as the phrase is – finger-pointing has a place if the intention is to spotlight a problem and create substantive solutions to solve it.
And just like Pacific Palisades, we have a serious problem here in the Flathead Valley – fire danger. We need to point a finger at wildfire preparation – and the entities and people responsible for it – because we are not ready for a blaze of Palisades proportions.
We’ve already had our warnings.
The 22,000-acre Elmo Fire in 2022 and the 2,300-acre Boulder 2700 fire in 2021, among others, were only a sample of things to come. Fortunately, these fires didn’t result in significant loss of life – even one life lost is tragic and unnecessary – or property damage. But fortune is all we have on our side without proper wildfire preparation and egress planning.
Luck isn’t good enough. When it comes to a truly catastrophic wildfire – like Pacific Palisades, like the Marshall fire, like Paradise – we’re living on borrowed time.
The City of Whitefish is in the midst of amending its growth policy – Vision Whitefish 2045 – which will describe how the town plans to accommodate growth and address issues such as affordability, housing and walkability, among others. A comprehensive Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) will be incorporated into the plan, which according to statute, must be adopted by the city by May 2026.
A proper CWPP involves conducting a risk assessment – the last one for Whitefish was conducted in 1993 – and engaging the appropriate outside expertise to develop an effective response. It’s not a quick process and the gears of government turn slowly. We don’t have until May 2026 to get a CWPP done.
A catastrophic fire is not waiting for us to finish our growth policy. Until a current CWPP is in place, the city is at risk. If the city burns down with lives lost and countless buildings destroyed because there were failures in the city’s response, what good is a twenty-year vision? The focus must be preservation first, growth second.
It’s already well-documented that the City of Los Angeles failed to respond to its citizens’ concerns. The New York Times recently reported that “Over the past decade, residents have held meetings and sent emails urging local officials to recognize the potential for problems with evacuation and do more to avoid the risk of future disaster. In a 2020 message to Los Angeles City Council members, Palisades community leaders said that there remained ‘substantial risks to public safety due to crowded conditions causing back-ups on both substandard and standard streets during required evacuations.’”
Residents of Whitefish must demand action. We need to insist – and persist – that the city make the development of a CWPP, including an egress plan, a priority.
We understand there are many competing issues to address, but among them, wildfire preparedness is the only existential issue. A wildfire has the potential to destroy Whitefish. While also critically important, affordability, housing and walkability do not.
What can you do?
Write (respectfully, please) to Whitefish city officials – Fire and Police Chiefs, Cole Hadley and Bridger Kelch, Mayor Muhlfield, City, Council members and include Alan Tiefenbach, long range planner for the City of Whitefish, to express your urgency to make wildfire preparedness a short-term priority of the growth policy work.
If you live in one of the other Flathead Valley communities, check with your local representatives or city website for a CWPP and egress plan.
There is no time to waste. We are living on borrowed time.
Brad Bulkley is President of Flathead Families for Responsible Growth.