Wildfire Ready: Palm Springs and the Rest of the Coachella Valley Are Better Prepared for Blazes Than Before—but Danger Remains

The Palisades and Eaton fires were so devastating that they shocked a generation largely immune to the dangers of fire “season.”

Southern Californians were accustomed to the breaking-news alerts and the mild inconveniences. Air quality might have been compromised, but unless a fire was actually in your neighborhood, ultimately, it was just the latest blaze.

But what the region experienced in January was different. High-profile communities were wiped out, and dozens of lives were lost. It was a wake-up call. Local emergency officials responded with urgency, clearing city-owned properties of brush and overgrowth, while educating home and business owners on clearing their lots according to best practices.

In this context, it was welcome news when Cal Fire issued updated Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps this spring, and most of the areas surrounding the Coachella Valley’s cities were rated as “moderate”—a better, safer rating than some of those areas had previously.

According to Palm Springs Fire Marshal Taylor Teeple, the Fire Department has been proactive regarding mitigation efforts.

“In the Greater Palm Springs area as a whole, everything along the mountainside last year was considered a very high (danger) fire zone,” Teeple said. “Our inspectors went out and did 1,299 inspections in accordance with our ordinance, Appendix S. We actually hired a brush-management company at the time. We wanted to set the example, and we went out and cleared 18 different lots that equated to 91 acres. We couldn’t ask our residents to clear brush if we weren’t clearing brush on our own city lots.”

Tim O’Bayley has lived in the city’s Little Tuscany neighborhood for more than 20 years. He didn’t want to take chances with fire hazards, so he got involved. The area is dry, he said, and with municipal land butting up against private homes, both entities needed to make sure brush was cleared from their property.

“I actually reached out to the city and the chief and Fire Marshal (Teeple), knowing that these maps were going to be coming out. I just said, ‘Hey, you know, I live up here, and I’m just concerned, because it’s dry already, and I’ve noticed some homeowners’ (lots) that back up against what is now city-owned land,’” O’Bayley said.

The state’s Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) map can be clumsy to navigate and misleading. It does not adjust for structures that have been “hardened” (for example, adjusting vents to block flying embers, or replacing wooden fences, roof shakes or shutters), or for areas where brush has been cleared. Rather, it indicates where people should be taking measures to shore up their properties.

The maps may affect Local Responsibility Area (LRA) mandates, meaning new construction projects have to satisfy Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) building codes, and sellers have to disclose the FHSZ status of their properties.

O’Bayley made his own map, zeroing in on Little Tuscany. It made it easier for locals to target areas for cleanup. Soon, the city was there with a press conference and bulldozers. Weeks later, the overgrowth was gone.

“I did an overlay so you could see the street names, and people would then be able to tell better if they’re really, you know, in a moderate (area) or not,” O’Bayley said. “The uncontrolled brush is the problem. We all love nature, but we all know, and the chief re-emphasized, that they need to keep this brush down, because we get more wind out at that end (of the Coachella Valley). And it can be a deadly combination, just like we saw in Los Angeles.”

Cal Fire’s new designations added 3,626 square miles of orange and red zones—representing high and very high hazard areas. Still, in a state map awash with fire incidents, it’s important to keep scale in mind. Cal Fire’s 2025 Incident Archive, as of our press deadline, reported 5,543 wildfires this year, with 371,662 acres burned, and 16,344 structures destroyed. There are about 101.5 million acres in the state.

In Coachella Valley, areas of high and very high hazard on the FHSZ map have essentially disappeared. The blocks of red that had been near Tuscany and west of downtown Palm Springs are no more. Except for an orange patch (high hazard) between Indian Wells and La Quinta, and some pink/red (very high) areas in the mountains near Alpine Village, the entire Coachella Valley is surrounded by yellow (moderate) on the maps. (The middle swath of the valley is grey on the Cal Fire maps. That’s because those areas are not in areas where Cal Fire is responsible for fire prevention and suppression.)

‘Still Dangerous, but It’s Different’

At a One-PS (Organized Neighborhoods of Palm Springs) meeting earlier this year, Palm Springs Fire Chief Paul Alvarado told attendees that his department has been actively working to implement safety measures on multiple fronts. He said he was asked earlier this year, after the Los Angeles fires, if Palm Springs is safe.

“It’s the best question I’ve had since January,” Alvarado said. “Absolutely, you are. No. 1, you’ve got a fantastic fire department, and No. 2, we’re on top of things.”

Alvarado urged all residents to register for the city’s emergency notification system, Everbridge.

“When we issue an emergency notification to evacuate, you’re already dialed into that, and when you get the (order to) go, you’re out the door. These people waited too long, they waited until the last minute,” he said, pointing to a photo of a bulldozer pushing cars out of the way in Malibu.

“We talk about ready, set, go, meaning your home is ready,” Alvarado said. “You’ve created that defensible space; you’ve cleared the trees from hanging over your roof. You’ve got the go bag ready; you’re tuned in.”

Alvarado said he asked the city to pay to hire more firefighters in the coming fiscal year. He said each station needs to have a dedicated EMT crew. With enhanced training, he explained, his department can shave off life-saving seconds for emergency arrival times.

He’s also asked for an additional fire truck. With supply-chain issues these days, it can take five years to fulfill that order, he said.

An expansion at Fire Station 1 on Indian Canyon Drive is also in the works. It’s the oldest of the five Palm Springs stations.

Danny DeSelms, Palm Springs’ emergency management coordinator, joined Alvarado at the One-PS meeting to discuss the city’s newly revamped Emergency Operations Plan. The previous 300-page document was whittled down and revised in a cross-department collaboration, and includes lessons learned from the pandemic, Tropical Storm Hilary and the January fires. Deselms called the new 125-page document, which the City Council approved in May, a “30,000-foot view of how the city responds to disasters.”

Despite all of the preparation, the possible increased spending, and the encouraging FHSZ maps, the Coachella Valley is still prone to fires, Alvarado said. All the conditions are there—including dry habitats, extreme weather and human behavior.

“But it’s not what we saw in Palisades,” he said. “We get the winds here. … It’s still dangerous, but it’s different. … (Cal Fire) has brought everything that surrounds the core of Palm Springs into moderate, which makes complete sense. You fly an airplane over Palm Springs, and you can see the homes. You do that over Hollywood Hills or Malibu Canyon, (and you’ll see) they haven’t cleared their trees or their brush. When you look at the hills (in Palm Springs), you can actually see the hills. You can see the rocks. You can see the dirt.”