Wildfire Season Affects More Than Just The Forest

Willow Creek, Calif. (KIEM)- Although the fire’s containment remains at 80 percent, officials are confident on the decision to ease up on some of those evacuation orders, with only two zones remaining closed to the public.

Public Information Officer at the fire base camp, Kimberly Kaschalk says that more evacuation orders have been downgraded to warnings, but cations residents that are returning home. 

“The big news is we were able to lift some of the evacuation orders and downgrade them to warnings. So that means people are able to go back to their homes. However, we do want them to remain very, very cautious,” said Kaschalk. “There is still a lot of activity going on with fire apparatus, firefighters on the ground and they’re still working on some hazard trees to clean up that area.” 

Some personnel even shift their focus to repairing the land damaged by fire.

Kaschalk goes on to say, “We’re starting to look at how we can repair the land and the damage that unfortunately we have to do to suppress these fires? That’s kind of the point we’re at now, which is a good thing we’re looking at, okay, we’re getting things under control. What’s the next step? How do we fix what we did to just help this forest heal?”

The land is not the only thing the wildfire is affecting, many businesses are also being harmed by the repercussions of the fire. 

“Well, this last fire, the toughest thing about it has been that everyone got evacuated. All of my staff and myself… one of my servers was staying in the evacuation center and my wife and kids had to go over to Redding to get out of the smoke,” said local business owner D Snyder. 

“We’re giving, on the honor system, discounts to anyone who needs it. We’ve given away maybe 100 free meals to people who came in here and couldn’t get home or who had just left their home,” said Snyder. “We feel like it’s our responsibility or at least an opportunity for us to strengthen our community and really put our community’s best foot forward and support the people around us in that way.”

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