“Imagine spending four or more hours mired in traffic in the midst of choking smoke and advancing flames. Remember the people burned in their cars during fires in Oakland, Paradise, and Lahaina. This could be any roadway in Sonoma Valley north of the city of Sonoma,” says Kevin Padian, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, former Fire Board member and Valley resident. “Highway 12 corridor could become a death trap in the next major wildfire.” 

SAFE Roads Study

Evacuation Report Warns of Major Risk

A new study by a Sonoma Valley citizen’s group warns that wildfire evacuation data used in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) are unrealistic, significantly understating the effect of adding 1,000 new homes on evacuation times.

The SAFE (Sonoma Area Fire Evacuation) Report, conducted by KLD Associates, an expert firm in emergency planning, finds that residents evacuating a wildfire could spend between four and eight hours in traffic moving at walking speeds. The report was commissioned by the Valley of the Moon Alliance (VOTMA) to address the lack of reliable public evacuation plans for the Valley.

Much of Sonoma Valley sits in a wildland-urban interface, highly susceptible to fire. The 2017 Nuns Fire burned parts of Glen Ellen, damaging SDC’s historic farm buildings. The Valley’s geography worsens evacuation challenges, with only two parallel north-south routes—Highway 12 and Arnold Drive—serving 50,000 residents and 44,000 vehicles.

The SAFE Report models several evacuation scenarios. Currently, a southbound evacuation on Arnold Drive takes 171 minutes; if SDC is fully developed, this could increase to 285 minutes—nearly five hours. These estimates do not include additional time to reach safety beyond the Valley.

A key conclusion is that existing roadways cannot handle full-scale evacuations without severe delays. However, the County’s EIR claimed that the SDC development would add only 90 seconds to evacuation times, a figure dismissed as unrealistic by critics and ultimately rejected by Judge Bradford DeMeo, who called the County’s plan “toothless.”

The SAFE Report, based on detailed traffic data and surveys of nearly 600 households, starkly contrasts the County’s findings. Bean Anderson, Ph.D., a retired engineer, notes that while the population has grown tenfold, road capacity remains nearly unchanged in a century. The complete SAFE Report is now available to the public at www.VOTMA.org.

An in-depth article in the Sonoma Sun, by David Bolling.