On the behavior of rural neighbors in the face of the Dixie Fire

The Dixie Fire is now the second largest in California history, the largest being the August complex fire from last summer.  I've noticed an interesting preoccupation that some reporters have with the behavior of rural folks in the face of the fire.  The New York Times featured this headline a few days ago, "Despite Dixie Fire's destruction, some residents aren't evacuating."  Here's the salient excerpt:  

As the Dixie Fire ravaging Northern California became the state’s second largest on record over the weekend, efforts to save tinder dry land, towns and homes from being destroyed have been complicated by residents who aren’t heeding one order: evacuate.

Oddly, the short update makes no other reference to the refusal to evacuate.  That is, the complications are not expanded on in the story. 

The Los Angeles Times, however, fills that gap with this August 7 headline, "As Dixie fire tears through communities, some refuse evacuation orders with guns in hand." Yet the journalists didn't get to the "guns in hand" part of the story until the 8th paragraph:

Greg Hagwood, a Plumas County supervisor, said that in the last 72 hours, as fire has swept through or threatened small mountain towns including Greenville, the evacuations have grown tense — in some cases, residents have met law enforcement with weapons.

“They are met with people who have guns and [are] saying, ‘Get off my property and you are not telling me to leave,’” he said.

In response to those who flatly refused to evacuate, he said, deputies were asking for next-of-kin information so they would have someone to notify if the holdouts died.

I saw some rural California folks on Twitter responding to that LA Times headline by explaining that rural folks tend to look out for one another--including each other's property.   In other words, staying behind to fight the fire--and fight to save their homes and those of their neighbors--is logical for them.  Here's a screenshot of one such tweet responding to the LA Times tweet of the story above:  

And here's a more positive spin on rural neighborliness, this from a New York Times story (dated August 9, 2021) about how some of these Plumas County communities are functioning right now: 

In the remote mountain communities that dot Plumas County, a thinly populated county near the border with Nevada, choking smoke hangs thick in the air. The power is out, and in some places water is scarce both for firefighting and drinking. Residents who have decided not to evacuate are collecting meat and groceries from their neighbors’ fridges. Others are isolated, holding out for deliveries from community firefighters of food, medicine and gas.

* * * 

Around Taylorsville, a tightly-knit community, people​ have been preparing for the fire​ for weeks, helping one another dig trenches with bulldozers, set up irrigation lines and spray homes​. Many ranchers have packed their​ most precious​ belongings and stored them in cattle trailers in​​ irrigated fields​ where they hope they will be safe if the fire comes down from the mountains​. ​People’s ​days revolve around tracking the fire’s every move​. ​The sound of generators fill the air.

Finally, here's a tweet about solidarity and self-sufficiency within Plumas County as it has faced the Dixie Fire: 

 A post from a few days ago, about the fire's destruction of Greenville, is here.   

Just thinking that it would be interesting to contrast coverage of the behavior of rural folks who stay behind in the wake of fire with that of urban (and other) folks who stay behind as hurricanes approach.  Are there similarities and differences in how these folks are depicted?  as rational or not?