This week on The Daily, Annie Correal, a staff reporter for The Times, introduced us to some members of her family who had made a difficult and controversial choice. Despite mandatory evacuation orders in parts of California that were threatened by a huge wildfire this summer, they chose to stay behind and try to fight the blaze. Many of you wrote in with thoughts about the episode, and with questions for Annie. Here are some of her answers, which have been edited and condensed for clarity. |
 | | Heather Kingdon took measures to combat the Dixie wildfire as it threatened her family's home in Genesee, Calif., last month.Christian Monterrosa for The New York Times |
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Who were the people who stayed behind during the Dixie fire, defying evacuation orders, and why did you decide to report on them? |
Fire authorities always emphasize the importance of evacuating when the orders come down. They say staying endangers lives, including the lives of firefighters, who might have to go in and rescue someone. Not everyone is in a good position to defend their home, and even when they are, it's extraordinarily risky, especially in this era of so-called megafires. These fires are exhibiting really extreme behavior, and the many tactics that wildland firefighters use to contain big fires like this have often been failing. |
After the Dixie fire destroyed the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville on Aug. 4, evacuation orders came down for much of Indian Valley, where my family lives, in the northern Sierra Nevada. Most people left, but some three or four dozen decided to stay behind, hoping to defend their property. They included the area's handful of cattle-ranching families, Native American people from the Maidu tribe living on ancestral land, a few business owners and people hoping their presence would help save uninsured homes. What they had in common was that they were not wealthy and went back a long time in the area. |
Are there people in other rural areas in these fires' paths who aren't evacuating either? |
According to Amanda Stasiewicz, an environmental studies professor at the San Jose State University Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, people in some ranching and agricultural communities around the Western U.S. are also opting to "stay and defend," as fires spread, and in some states, ranchers are getting certified to do various firefighting duties. In Australia, there has been a "Prepare, Stay and Defend or Leave Early" policy, which offers people an alternative to evacuating, unlike in the U.S., where the policy is "Ready, Set, Go!" (Australia's policy came under scrutiny after a number of deaths, though.) Not to evacuate is dangerous, and most people think there is no safe way to do it. But it is worth reporting on, I think, as more and more rural residents — and others, of course — will be confronted with fires in years to come. |
What was it like for those who stayed behind in Indian Valley? |
It wasn't easy. The National Guard set up checkpoints. Once you left, you couldn't come back. There were long power outages. No trash collection; no mail. Something happened to a fiber-optic cable, so there was no Wi-Fi, either. It was easy for people to feel cut off, and frustrated, too, as they saw resources like fire engines and aircraft come and go, sent to new fronts on the giant fire. |
Why was there frustration toward firefighters? |
On the ground, locals were collaborating with firefighters in various ways. And yet in the episode, you can hear my relative Vanessa's frustration with firefighters. As I mention in the piece, this was in part frustration with how firefighting resources were being diverted, often to areas with bigger populations and more infrastructure, which is the policy of the U.S. Forest Service. |
By mid-August, resources were stretched very, very thin. There were around 100 large, uncontrolled fires in the American West, and the Dixie fire alone had spread to cover 1,000 square miles. Many of the choices on where to send resources were being made from afar, based on fire behavior and what was being threatened. But for these rural residents, it was easy to feel vulnerable to those choices. |
Why did you feel it was important in this episode to highlight the perspectives of people who chose not to evacuate? |
Vanessa and people like her were also frustrated by how they had been depicted by the media. The media, for good reason, tends to echo the authorities' message about the importance of evacuating. This is an important public service, but portraits of people who don't evacuate, a staple of disaster coverage, can leave those who stay behind feeling misrepresented or like they've been reduced to a stereotype. I thought it was important to inquire about my family's reasons. And maybe in the process, to question how we in the media cover this issue. |
How did it feel to report on your family? What challenges did you run into? |
This was a challenging assignment. There was the hazardous air quality, for one, and it was taxing to always be on alert for changes in the fire's direction. It was also hard to see my relatives under so much stress and not to know if they would be OK. |
At the same time, I knew I was there as a journalist. My job was to report on what they did and the consequences, not to get them to evacuate — not that I would have been able to anyway. It was also challenging to see these places from my childhood endangered, or, in some cases, already destroyed. This was difficult, to say the least. Every place I went, I was reporting, but also saying goodbye. |
The loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one year on |
 | | Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
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Last Saturday was the first anniversary of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Last year, The Daily covered her death with a two-part series focused on her legacy. "When you look back at the whole arc of her life and work, there's really no single person who's accomplished what she has for women — for men, too — in the notion of equality that has been now so baked into our legal structure," Linda Greenhouse, a contributing Opinion writer, explained on the show. |
But her legacy is something living — something that evolves with every ruling since her death. Below, Adam Liptak, our Supreme Court correspondent, shares a reflection on the continued impact of the justice's passing. |
It was the summer of 2013. President Barack Obama was in the early months of his second term and calls for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire were mounting. She was 80 and had survived two bouts with cancer, and liberals were nervous. If a Republican won the presidency in 2016, they said, Justice Ginsburg's legacy, notably including her support for abortion rights, could be in peril. I asked her about those concerns in an interview in her chambers. She said the liberals' fears were misplaced. "There will be a president after this one, and I'm hopeful that that president will be a fine president," she said. Justice Ginsburg said her decision about whether to retire would turn on her health and not on who would appoint her successor. She did not seem worried that a new justice would tilt the balance of the court and upend her accomplishments. "I don't see that my majority opinions are going to be undone," she said. "I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law." She died seven years later, on Sept. 18, 2020. President Donald J. Trump, in the final months of his presidency, named Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace her. This month, Justice Barrett voted with the majority in a 5-to-4 decision refusing to block a Texas law that banned most abortions after six weeks. Had Justice Ginsburg or a liberal successor been on the court, the result would almost surely have been different. Last month, I interviewed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is 83 and the senior member of what is now the court's three-member liberal wing. "There are many considerations," he said when I asked him about his own retirement plans. |
Tuesday: Inside the Times investigation that forced the U.S. military to acknowledge that a drone attack in Afghanistan, which killed 10 innocent civilians, was a deadly error. |
Wednesday: Why has the U.S.-British deal to sell military technology to Australia infuriated the French? |
That's it for The Daily newsletter. See you next week. |
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