Don’t let Whitefish become Pacific Palisades

The city of Whitefish and the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles are so much further apart than the 1,356 miles between us would suggest. 

Pacific Palisades has been an exemplary community with so much to offer. But it also represents exactly what we don’t want here: Runaway development, extreme density, busy streets and more.

Still, our communities have long had an irrefutable similarity that just played out as the most horrific nightmare imaginable for the residents of Pacific Palisades — fire danger. The difference, of course, is that Whitefish still stands. Pacific Palisades does not.

We can take this as nothing less than a desperate warning. The city of Whitefish, emergency planners and the committee amending our growth policy — Vision Whitefish 2045 — must be held accountable for addressing our dire need for wildfire preparedness. A comprehensive Community Wildfire Protection Plan must be incorporated. 

We, the residents of Whitefish, are responsible for holding the city accountable and taking action. And it has to happen now — not next week, but now.  

Is that too reactionary? Too alarmist? 

Not on your life, which will be in serious jeopardy if you’re trapped in complete gridlock on Wisconsin Avenue with 1,200-degree flames roaring on both sides of the road. The threat is real.  

Like it was with Pacific Palisades, a large, rampant wildfire in and around Whitefish and the Flathead Valley is a matter of when, not if. Let’s take a cue from the city of Los Angeles, which — pure and simple — did not respond to its citizens’ concerns.

An important article in the New York Times on Jan. 8 titled “In the Palisades, an evacuation disaster was years in the making,” chronicled the city’s failures. Consider these excerpts:

“The chaotic scene was one years in the making. As in other areas of the towering, fire-prone hillside neighbors that ring the Los Angeles basin, Pacific Palisades residents had long pleaded for more attention to preparing for the fires that are striking the region with ever-greater frequency and ferocity. As recently as 2019, two fires that burned near parts of Pacific Palisades had shown the challenges of moving thousands of people through the area’s few routes.”

The threat was known, and residents had urged the city to engage, getting nothing in return. 

“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.’” 

As residents of Whitefish, it’s incumbent upon us to not only demand action but persist until emergency planners and the city act by substantively addressing wildfire risk — and especially egress risk — in a detailed Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which would then be incorporated into the growth policy.

In the spirit of intellectual honesty, we need to acknowledge the unique factors that have contributed to the tragedy in Pacific Palisades. This year’s extreme Santa Ana winds caused the fire’s explosive growth while also preventing the use of aerial equipment to help tame the blaze.

We don’t have those winds, of course, but we have thousands of acres of dried-out vegetation spread out over even more challenging topography. And even with a population that is minuscule by comparison, our egress challenges are at least as significant as those in Pacific Palisades.

At the end of the day, our wildfire risk is no less than that of a community that just burned to the ground. And is still burning.

What can you do? Write (respectfully, of course) to our fire and police chiefs, Cole Hadley and Bridger Kelch, Mayor John Muhlfeld, city officials and 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.

There is no time to waste. The time is now. Not next week, now.

Brad Bulkley is president of Flathead Families for Responsible Growth.