Katie Dowd
SFGate, San Francisco
(TNS)
Jul. 28—The historic Kern County town of Havilah has been virtually razed by the Borel Fire. Once the county seat, Havilah now faces the daunting prospect of rebuilding again.
Photos and video taken over the weekend show the destruction of the once-prosperous mining town located about 60 miles northeast of Bakersfield. Nearly every building along Caliente Bodfish Road, including the historic courthouse, burned down as the fire swept through. One of the few buildings to be spared was Havilah’s old schoolhouse; KGET reported that firefighters saw embers sparking beneath the building but were able to cut through the front porch and put out the fire before it spread.
“Our hearts are out to those members of the public in the Havilah and Piute Meadows area,” Kern County fire deputy chief Dionisio Mitchell said a press conference Saturday. “We know they took a loss yesterday. It’s difficult for them. We currently have teams there assessing the situation.”
Gold was found in Havilah in the 1860s, giving it a boom in population and its name: a land referenced in the Bible that was once filled with gold. Havilah had it all, boasting a newspaper, saloons, hotels, dance halls and drugstores. At its height, Havilah had 3,000 residents and served as the Kern County seat until it was moved to Bakersfield in 1872.
But Havilah’s heyday was short, and by the early 20th century it was considered something of a ghost town. In 1921, the Bakersfield Echo called it a “deserted village, buried deep in the beautiful mountains of Kern County” with just three residents. Wildfires burned much of the town in the 1920s, and some of its historic buildings were replicas built after that decade.
Requests for comment from the U.S. Forest Service and Kern County’s District 1, which includes Havilah, were not returned by publication time.
The Borel Fire began on Wednesday when a driver on Highway 178 left the roadway for unknown reasons. When Kern County firefighters arrived at the scene, the driver was deceased and fire had reached both sides of the highway. The fire has burned over 38,000 acres with no containment. Evacuation information can be found via the Kern County Fire Department.
Sequoia National Forest officials said the fire was “very active” due to red flag conditions on Saturday. “Progression of the Borel is expected again today, largely to the east,” officials said in a Sunday morning incident report.
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