06/15/2026
July 24, 2024, 1pm.
A car went off Highway 178 near Democrat Road and caught fire on the embankment. Within hours, the flames had climbed the hillside. Within weeks, the Borel Fire had burned almost 60,000 acres and become the largest wildfire in Kern County's history.
Parts of Havilah were leveled. Lake Isabella businesses sat empty for days under evacuation orders. Some people had under an hour to grab what they could and go.
Business continuity isn't paranoia in this Valley. It's pattern recognition. It means files that live in the cloud rather than on the office server, phone systems that work from anywhere, and a plan written down in plain English for what happens on day one if the office is gone.
The Borel Fire started with one car. There will be another one.