Big Bear just had a close call.
Officials don’t yet know what sparked the Radford fire on Sept. 5. But while the blaze triggered hundreds of evacuations and consumed more than 1,000 acres of San Bernardino National Forest south of town, a combination of aggressive firefighting, shifting winds and a monsoonal storm meant none of the mountain community’s 20,000 residents lost their homes.
Worries about close calls turning into catastrophes — such as the Camp fire, which in 2018 devastated the town of Paradise — are what keeps Jason Collier, environmental coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service in the San Bernardino National Forest, up at night.
