ABNORMAL

“Just look at the Sierra on Google Earth. The forest is orange from all the dead trees. It used to be green.”

wine-growing areas were ablaze. The result: mass cancellations and alarm across unaffected wine regions. Areas that were directly affected were treated as quarantine zones. Travelers were reluctant to visit, thinking they would be interfering with recovery efforts, or that their experience wouldn’t be as good, even as tasting rooms remained open, restaurants set empty tables and lodging was widely available.

Because international and out-of-state travelers book trips far in advance, they’re less likely to change plans when a wildfire occurs. They either don’t show, purchase travel insurance or stick to their itineraries and ride out the discomfort. Those initial losses are particularly hard for small tourism communities to overcome.

Californians, on the other hand, quickly adapt their plans and change reservations. As a result, we’ve seen travel to wildfire-affected destinations return to near normal within weeks. During the recent Paradise and Malibu (Camp and Woolsey) fires, for instance, online travel agencies saw short-term dips of 10 to 11 percent, due to cancellations, postponements or relocation to other California destinations, according to Visit California president and CEO Caroline Beteta. After the dust settles, some tourist-dependent areas can get back on track relatively quickly. “Napa and Sonoma reported being up in 2018 over 2017 when the Wine Country fires happened,” Beteta said. “Napa had bounced back within two months.”

But not every California destination is as popular as Napa, and many suffer far greater damage.

Wildfires hurt most in rural California — those places most dependent on clean air and quality outdoor experiences to entice visitors. Tourism businesses in forested areas — which often have short operating seasons — may not survive “the new abnormal.”

“The Carr Fire (in Redding) occurred in the middle of summer and it broke our back,” Koeberer says. “We never really came out of it, even after the fire was out. People didn’t return to Shasta or Lassen Volcanic (National Park), even though the fires were out.”

Wildfire effects extend John Koeberer, CEO of the California Parks Co. beyond the burn areas. Smoke travels for hundreds of miles and destroys the travel experience by making a casual visit both unpleasant and unhealthy. The issue then filters down to the businesses and infrastructure supporting tourism: campgrounds, lakes, resorts, outfitters, lodges, retailers and restaurants.

In Southern California, where Koeberer’s company operates campgrounds at Lake Hemet, “the fire almost made it to our back door, but it was the economic hit that nearly broke us,” he said. Koeberer has had difficulty getting a bank loan to finance improvements, as well as fire insurance and business interruption insurance.

“If you can’t insure outdoors-based facilities, you can’t improve or operate them,” Koeberer said. “The banks are going to back off.”

Measuring the immediate and long-term economic impact of wildfire on travel and tourism is complicated: Reporting on hotel occupancy and tax receipts typically takes up to 18 months; poor tourist occupancy of hotels in the immediate area of a wildfire is often offset by displaced residents and recovery workers; and research does not usually connect declines in tourism, beyond the immediate area, to the cause of the decline.

Other ripple effects are even tougher to guage but can be consequential.

An executive at a large California-based outdoor business who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect his company’s relationships with destinations and public agencies, told The Chronicle that the effect of wildfires has gotten so bad he is no longer looking to expand his outdoor recreation and tourism company inside the state and is now seeking similar opportunities outside California. “And I’m not the only one,” he said. “It’s a big, big story.”

What this means for California travelers is that the places we go and the things we love to do in the outdoors may be suffocated long term, not just during the everexpanding fire season.

Welcome to the new abnormal.

John Poimiroo is California’s former state tourism director and an active outdoor and travel writer. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com

Noah Berger / Associated Press 2018 Heavy smoke from the Ferguson Fire filters the sunlight and turns the sky orange above Yosemite Valley, providing a surreal backdrop for visitors taking photographs at Yosemite National Park in July.