California’s extreme wildfires taking lethal toll on elderly who can’t escape flames

Ronald Tyra knew it was time to flee when the 100-acre blaze across the street began igniting spot fires as it raced down the mountain. Tyra sped from his Klamath River, Calif., home with little more than the clothes on his back.

His neighbors — Charles Kays, 79, and his wife, Judith, 82 — were not so lucky. Only recently identified by authorities, their bodies were found in a burned vehicle near the bottom of their driveway. They apparently had rammed a locked gate attempting to escape and veered off the road, officials said.

The fast-moving fire would also claim the lives of two more Klamath River residents: Kathy Shoopman, 73, a veteran Forest Service fire lookout, and John Cogan, 76. Some say they were initially reluctant to leave their longtime homes even as officials urged them to evacuate.

Today, nearly a month after the Mckinney fire ignited in Siskiyou County and grew to be the state’s largest wildfire of the year, experts say the deaths in this small unincorporated community highlight the growing vulnerability of rural seniors in an age of extreme blazes.

“Whether you’re looking at wildfire frequency, or you’re looking at the area burned by wildfires, the proportion of elderly people increases in a fairly linear way as you get into census tracts of higher risk,” said Shahir Masri, an environmental health scientist at UC Irvine.

Not only are older people more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses or disabilities that limit mobility — making it more difficult to escape a raging fire — Masri said they are also more likely to live in rural areas, where job opportunities are scarce but living expenses are generally lower. These are also the areas that bear the brunt of the West’s increasing wildfire risk, according to a paper Masri published last year in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The tragedy recalls the toll of California’s deadliest blaze in 2018. The majority of the 85 people who died in the Camp fire were over

65, prompting calls for emergency preparedness strategies to better target seniors who live in areas of high fire risk.

In Siskiyou County, nearly

27% of residents are 65 or older, compared with about 15% of residents statewide, according to U.S. census data. Much of the county, including virtually all of the Highway 96 corridor where the blaze destroyed homes, is considered a very high fire hazard zone.

Recognizing this, the county sent deputies or firefighters to each of the roughly 800 homes that were ordered to evacuate, said Bryan Schenone, director of the county’s Office of Emergency Management.

They also checked a county-wide registry of vulnerable people who need more help to leave and sent buses and ambulances to a mobile home park and assisted living center in Yreka, he said.

Still, he said, authorities cannot force people to leave if they choose to stay behind.

Some Siskiyou County residents have lived in the area for 60 or 70 years and have seen many fires come through, Schenone said. Those past experiences might make them think they can weather the crisis.

But today’s fires are fundamentally different from those that burned decades ago, officials say.

“We’re definitely seeing conditions change over the last several years to where fires are burning more intensely and getting larger quicker,” said Heather Mcrae, deputy fire management officer for Klamath National

Forest. “It’s not like it used to be as far as fire behavior goes.”