El Dorado Hills Grows Toward Fire Country
One of the Sacramento region's fastest-growing communities is expanding directly into oak woodland and grassland that burns. For 42,000 residents along the Highway 50 corridor, wildfire preparedness is the cost of foothill living.
El Dorado Hills is an unincorporated community of roughly 42,000 people in western El Dorado County, occupying the rolling oak-studded foothills between Folsom Lake and the Sierra Nevada front. The community straddles Highway 50 at elevations ranging from 500 to 1,200 feet, with residential development spreading steadily eastward into terrain that was open rangeland and oak woodland a generation ago. Master-planned neighborhoods like Serrano, Blackstone, and The Highlands sit on ridgelines and in valleys surrounded by the dry grass and blue oak savanna that defines the western El Dorado County landscape.
The community's appeal — large lots, oak-canopy streets, proximity to Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, and views of the Sacramento Valley — is inseparable from its fire exposure. The same grass-and-oak fuel type that makes the landscape attractive also carries fire rapidly during the dry months from May through November. Summer temperatures routinely exceed 100°F, curing fine fuels to tinder within weeks of the last spring rain. Wind-driven grass fires can spread at 50+ acres per hour across the open terrain surrounding newer subdivisions.