A Quick Historical Glance at the California Fires

TDT | Manama

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Conventional wisdom has it that fires are destructive to the ecosystem when gone out of control or used more often. Repeated burning could devastate forests and trees and is likely to increase erosion and destroy the mineral content of the soil, undermining the natural habitat for both humans and animals. While this might hold water, it has also been ecologically proven that, when employed on a small scale, wildfire can be a sustainable environmental force. Within the context of the whole expanse of what is today the United States, historical records reveal that man-caused fires had been frequently set for various purposes by both the indigenous inhabitants, now known as the Native Americans, and the Euro-Americans up until the dawn of the twentieth century. Fires, for instance, were burned to clear forests for more settlements in the untamed wilderness and prepare the ground for planting. They were also used as a subsistence strategy, whereby people set fires to the woods to reduce brush, encourage the growth of pasturage, and provide meadowlands for wildlife. Burning the land also contributed to the decomposition of forest litter and the recycling of nutrients through an ecosystem.

The ecology of California, in particular, has largely been determined by fire. Indeed, much of the Golden State’s plant life evolved in response to fire, incorporating the periodic burnings into their life cycles. Fire was set to freshwater marshes, thereby fostering the growth of forage for livestock, providing more space for waterfowl nesting, and increasing overall species diversity. In this sense, many coastal California environments were human artifacts, the product of burning, and would have reverted to woody vegetation had this technique been abandoned. This long-standing practice, however, came to a halt in 1910 when the US Forest Service embarked on a nationwide policy of forest fire suppression and redefined fire setting as a federal crime, following the conflagrations that raged across the West Coast region, sending smoke as far east as the East Coast states.

Nature, however, knows not these restrictions. January 7th marked a black day for the state of California when a series of conflagrations erupted across the Los Angeles area starting in Pacific Palisades in the Santa Monica Mountains then moving on by strong winds to the Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains and other adjacent neighborhoods. Things did not stop there. Two weeks later, the Hughes Fire broke out in the northern part of the LA County. Firefighters had to wrestle with the fires for three weeks before they could bring them under control on January 31. The fires left behind serious damage. According to the initial estimates of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the blazes scorched a total of 50,293 acres and wiped out more than 17,000 structures, ending the life of at least 29 people and displacing vast numbers of others to the streets. Financially, the LA Fires are the costliest in the nation’s history, expected to reach an amount in excess of $50 billion.

Were Californians taken aback by the LA Fires per se? The answer is categorically negative. The Golden State has had a long history with blazes as it is geographically characterized by a volatile physical environment prone to drought and blistering winds, thus exposing it to increased risks for fire eruption. In the 1980s alone, 10,000 wildfires struck the Golden State, and since 2000, the state has been subject to a series of annual conflagrations of varying degrees, establishing themselves as part of a trend toward larger and more damaging fires. The calamities are partly natural, but the magnitude of their development has been, in fact, the result of a reckless policy of suburban sprawl dating back to the post-WWII period. Eager for more fresh land, house developers entertained the idea of building on hillsides. The foothills of the San Gabriels, it came to be known, are covered with chaparral, a type of scrubland extremely prone to fire. When developers descended on the foothills of Los Angeles, they were building in the midst of one of North America’s most flammable environments. More important, the proliferation of fire-prone wooden roofs in the postwar period boosted that hazard even further. In a sense, while Californian suburbanites are aware of the inevitability of fire-breaking in most parts of the state, they have nonetheless chosen to put much faith in the capabilities of their state and federal governments to bail them out when self-inflicted calamity hit. What those Californians have failed to consider, however, is that nature can strike back at any moment in ways beyond humans’ imagination and calculations. Indeed, what horrified Californians—and the whole world—more than anything else was the scale of the damage wrought by such wildfires, especially the latest ones.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Daily Tribune)