California's wildfires are getting worse
in fact six of the state's most
destructive wildfires have happened in
the last four years in 2018 alone fire
scorched nearly 2 million acres
it was California's deadliest and most
destructive wildfire season ever
recorded this year The Electric Company
PG & E even preemptively shut off power
in areas of Northern California to
reduce the risk of igniting a blaze so
are the prevention techniques we're
currently using enough or is there
something more Californians can do to
control these wildfires fire management
and prevention can look very different
depending on which part of the state you
live in we have two very different types
of fires that are driven by two very
different factors many of our fires
occur in the northern part of the state
and the Sierra Nevada and the primary
reason for some of Northern California's
most severe forest fires is a buildup of
brush on the forest floor historically
California forests naturally cleared
this brush through smaller more frequent
fires but with the founding of the u.s.
Forest Service in the early 1900's the
US government began putting out these
fires
we have many forests in the northern
part of the state that have gone a
century without fire and that was one of
the most important factor in factors in
the Northern California fires of 2018 so
in Northern California one effective
method of dealing with this accumulation
of fuels is prescribed burning the goal
is to light a fire under safe conditions
in order to clear out the dead plants
and underbrush that can act as fuel for
the most severe uncontrollable wildfires
fires will burn no matter what but with
this technique firefighters can control
when where and how much they burn if you
talk to people who fight fires they'll
tell you there's no question in their
mind that they can see the change in
fire behavior when they reach a
prescribed burn area and how much easier
it is to extinguish the fire once it
reaches those areas between 1998 and
2018
less than 3% of all controlled burns in
the country happened in California and
that's pretty low when you consider that
more wildfires have burned in California
over the last five years than in every
other US state except Texas but
prescription burns wouldn't work
everywhere in fact in Southern
California it might actually make things
worse due to a number of reasons
including the most obvious being near
large metropolitan areas the devastating
campfire for instance happened as a
result of extreme wind conditions not
from a buildup of dense brush so when it
comes to wind driven fires here are some
things Californians can do to protect
their homes the type of eaves you have
on your home can make a big difference
in whether your home survives or as
burned and eve is basically the edge of
a roof and having closed eaves makes it
harder for embers to enter the home
other things like single pane versus
double pane windows not surprisingly
thicker windows will do a better job of
standing up to high heat than thinner
windows clearing dried leaves and brush
off of your roof and gutters leaves less
litter for fires to catch flame by
installing a sprinkler system on your
roof you can catch embers early on and
prevent rooftops and other homes from
igniting planting more well watered
trees around buildings can also increase
the chances of a structure surviving a
wildfire we often think the best way to
protect our homes is to get rid of all
the vegetation around the home but it
turns out in these wind driven fires
when you completely clear the landscape
the winds blow unobstructed across your
landscape and bring embers right to your
home but if you have trees that are
green those trees can actually collect
the embers what we call ember catchers
cutting off power to homes can also help
dry windy weather compounded by extreme
drought conditions and an expanding
power grid have made the perfect
environment for power line sparks to
ignite massive wildfires in the last
decade probably our worst fires at least
wind driven fires have been ignited by
power line failures but cutting power
alone isn't a long-term fix for this
problem a utility company could respond
to this one could be to put in
underground power lines and then you
have less chance of a failure and
igniting a fire California fires are
also compounded by the state's growing
population you see the majority of
wildfires are human caused so a bigger
population means more chances for arson
and accidental fires that can grow out
of control so a longer-term solution for
this could be better community planning
we need to think better about how to
plan communities but part of the problem
is is the state's growing and just in
the last 20 years we see this massive
increase in fires well we've also had
six million more people added to the
state the next 30 years we're gonna see
another 20 million and so we need to
think how do we plan communities so that
we can reduce the possibility that
people will ignite these fires during
extreme wind events and finally
combating global warming will also play
a crucial role in the future of
California's wildfires according to a
recent report Northern California
summers have gotten 2.5 degrees warmer
since 1970 hotter weather causes drier
dry seasons and especially affects areas
like Northern California forests slowing
down or stopping this warming trajectory
could potentially play a role in the
intensity and severity of wildfires in
the years to come
you
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