A wildfire is bearing down on a tiny town. And hardly anyone is leaving | Many residents of Stehekin, Wash., which is accessible only by ferry, have defied an evacuation order as the Pioneer Fire approaches

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>The Pioneer Fire started nearly two months ago and at that time it was 10 miles from Stehekin. Now it’s only a mile and a half away, after burning through more than 33,000 acres. A week ago, authorities issued a Level 3 evacuation order for the roughly 100 people who live in Stehekin, instructing them to “go now.” Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee (D) urged residents to leave in a video message this week, saying that “their presence make it much more difficult for our firefighters to fight the fire.”

>As the fire creeps closer, residents’ refusal to leave has become an increasingly thorny issue for authorities working to protect Stehekin and other threatened communities along Lake Chelan. The looming fire has closed down the National Park Service lodge and other businesses here, but state law permits residents to stay on their property even under the highest-level evacuation order. As of Thursday, authorities were aware of 92 residents still in the area.

>“It’s not like a fire that’s down in a normal community where you have a lot of egress routes out of the area. It’s one way in, one way out,” said Rich Magnussen, an emergency management specialist with Chelan County. “Them staying there, they’re taking that risk. And we can’t guarantee that we can get back to them if something happens. That’s our big fear.”

>The drama in tiny Stehekin is playing out on a larger scale across the West, as dozens of uncontained wildfires threaten rural communities in several states. More than a million acres have already burned this year in the Pacific Northwest, more than twice as much as in any other region of the country. The Park Fire in Northern California alone has destroyed more than 500 homes and buildings, and tens of thousands of people are living under some level of evacuation warning or order across the country.

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