California man defends his home as wildfires push devastation and spread smoke across US West
In the small forest community of Cohasset, Ron Ward watched as flames hundreds of feet high from California’s deadly Park Fire approached his family ranch.
He had lost insurance coverage on it just a month earlier as companies increasingly drop California homeowners due to the growing risk of wildfires in the state, in part due to hotter weather and arid conditions caused by climate change. So he and his son Ethan went to work installing a fire protection system involving a water line to a pond and sprinklers. The system’s pump was delivered right when the fire started.
The flames reached within 70 feet (21. meters) of his house. Then they stopped.
“It hit our sprinklers and kind of died down and then went around our property and missed, missed all of our structures,” Ward said. His 100-year-old ranch was saved.
