Borel fire destroys historic California mining town of Havilah

Sean Rains sifts through the rubble of his home that was destroyed by the Borel fire.

July 28, 2024 Updated 7:08 PM PT

The 38,000-acre Borel fire in Kern County has leveled the tiny, historic mining town of Havilah.

“We lost everything — it’s all gone,” Havilah resident Sean Rains told The Times on Sunday. “This whole town burned down. Multiple people, friends that I know — everybody lost everything.”

The fire ignited Wednesday in the Kern River canyon and spread rapidly as it met with strong winds, officials said. It ran through Havilah on Friday night and razed almost the entire town, appearing to spare only a few buildings.

Rubble from a fire is near to a plaque saying Historic Havilah.

For the record:

1:26 p.m. Aug. 7, 2024An earlier version of this post said that Rains helped firefighters prevent Havilah’s town hall from burning down. It was the town’s replica schoolhouse that was prevented from burning down and firefighters were not there.

Standing amid a pungent mixture of smoke and ash, Rains said he helped prevent Havilah’s replica schoolhouse from burning. But a nearby historical museum has been reduced to rubble, save for a plaque reading “Historic Havilah: First County Seat for Kern County.”

The unincorporated community of roughly 250 people is in the mountains northeast of Bakersfield.

“Our hearts are out to those members of the public in Havilah and the Piute Meadows area,” Kern County Fire Department Chief Deputy Dionisio Mitchell said during a news conference Saturday. “We know they took a loss yesterday. It’s difficult for them. We currently have teams there assessing the situation.”

More than 1,200 firefighters were contending with soaring temperatures and bone-dry conditions on Sunday as they continued to battle the fire, which remains uncontained.

Officials could not immediately confirm the number of structures burned and said assessments are ongoing. Thousands of people in the area remain under evacuation orders as the fire threatens populated areas such as Bodfish and Lake Isabella.

“We’ve been under red flag warning conditions, and the fire continues to burn in a very, very intense and erratic way,” said Capt. Andrew Freeborn with the Kern County Fire Department. “The flames can be seen from miles away. If you’re looking for what extreme fire behavior would be defined as, we’re seeing it on this fire.”

Firefighters walk toward a burned out truck.

Havilah was founded in the 1860s and is registered as a California historical landmark. Around the time of its founding, it was an active mining center home to saloons, dance halls, hotels, shops and other establishments, according to the Havilah Museum. The town served as the seat of Kern County from 1866-72, when the government was moved to Bakersfield.

But Havilah is also no stranger to fire, and many residents began to leave the town after several blazes tore through in the early 1870s, according to the museum.

However, the area where the Borel fire is burning hasn’t seen much wildfire activity since the early 1990s, which means there is ample unburned vegetation that can act as fuel for flames, officials said.

“And when you align the low [relative humidity], high winds, triple-digit weather we’ve been dealing with for the last 10 to 12 days, it all lined up for a perfect storm in there,” Mitchell said during Saturday’s news conference.

Incident commander Jim Snow added that crews are up against “steep, unforgiving country” and hot, sun-baked slopes.

“The weatherman says it’s 100 degrees out, but with the heat from the fire, the heat from the slope reflecting off it, and the heat from the general air temperature, you’re looking at upwards of 120, 130 degrees at any given time for the firefighters standing out there,” he said.

A residents collects his belongings from what is left of the Borel fire.

On Sunday, Havilah resident Brett Keith returned to find that his home had been destroyed. He dug through the rubble, but the only thing he could find was a small shotgun he’s had since he was 7 years old. A large bull belonging to his neighbor was standing in his front yard suffering from some burns.

“I’ll have to call my neighbor to come and get his bull,” he said.

The Borel fire is being managed with two other fires in Kern and Tulare counties, collectively referred to as the SQF Lightning incident. The other fires are the Trout fire, which has burned 23,369 acres and is 25% contained, and the Long fire, which has burned 9,204 acres and is 35% contained.

They are among about two dozen active wildfires in California, including the 360,000-acre Park fire burning in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties.

“This is going to be a fight for a while,” Mitchell said. “The state of California is under fire right now everywhere.”