TWO SEPTEMBERS AGO, the residents of Grotto, Washington, woke to the Bolt Creek Fire ripping through the mountains above their homes. “This doesn’t happen here,” Patricia Vasquez remembers saying at the time, shocked. While areas east of the state’s Cascade mountains frequently burn in the summer, Grotto is on the mountains’ western side, in a wetter climate, where fires had been infrequent but are now increasingly common. Vasquez evacuated with her husband, Lorenzo, Ava, their dog, and the fresh Alaska halibut they’d just caught while on vacation. Elizabeth Walther, their neighbor, evacuated with a puppy, but her husband, Richard, a ski patroller, stayed behind to hose down the house.
No one was hurt, and no houses burned. But now, wildfire survivors in Washington face a new threat: debris flows. Wildfires…
