tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/california-wildfires-57928/articlesCalifornia wildfires – The Conversation2023-11-02T12:20:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168472023-11-02T12:20:41Z2023-11-02T12:20:41ZThe wildfires that led to mass extinction: a warning from California’s Ice Age history – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557169/original/file-20231101-15-12hv68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C62%2C2946%2C1931&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/french-fire-burns-sequoia-national-forest-2028796637">Ringo Chiu via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, Californians have had to deal with some <a href="https://ktla.com/news/the-cities-where-wildfires-threaten-the-most-homes-in-california/">deadly and destructive wildfires</a>. But in fact, this part of the western United States has been shaped by fire for millennia. </p>
<p>In this episode of <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a></em> podcast, we hear about new research from California into a decades-old mystery: <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415">the extinction of large animals</a> at the end of the Ice Age. It’s providing some worrying lessons from history about the way humans, fire and ecosystems interact. </p>
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<p>In a park in the middle of Los Angeles lies one of the most important fossil sites in the world – the La Brea Tar Pits. The park sits atop a natural oil reserve. Regular earthquakes in the area opened up fissures in the ground, bringing some of that oil to the surface where it sits in pools of tar, or asphalt.</p>
<p>“The asphalt is so sticky that if you were to walk in there, you would not be able to get out without help if you were to get both of your feet stuck. And so that’s what happened over the last part of the Ice Age,” explains Emily Lindsey, a paleoecologist and associate curator at La Brea Tar Pits who also works at the University of California, Los Angeles. </p>
<p>This was a period when large animals roamed the Earth – including, in the area of modern-day California, mammoths, giant ground sloths, sabre-tooth cats and dire wolves. Many of these animals got trapped in the tar pits at La Brea, where their bodies provide a unique fossil record of the animals that moved through the area during the Ice Age – until, that is, about 13,000 years ago, says Lindsey.</p>
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<p>What’s unique about the Ice Age is that at the very end of it, after more than 50 million years of having big animals in all global ecosystems, most of those animals went extinct – most of the big ones. And it happened very rapidly.</p>
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<p>The cause of this mass extinction has been debated by scientists for decades. In <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo3594">new research</a>, Lindsey and her colleagues decided to use the fossil records at La Brea, combined with sediment records from a nearby lake, to pinpoint exactly when the extinctions took place in California – and what else was happening at the time. </p>
<p>They found that in the 2,000 years leading up to the extinction event, the climate in southern California was warming rapidly, and drying out. </p>
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<p>And then 200 years before the extinction event, about 13,200 years ago, we see something very unusual happen. Everything catches on fire.</p>
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<p>Lindsey and her team argue that alongside the warming climate, it was humans – whose populations began to expand in this part of North America at around this time – who probably ignited these fires, which eventually led to the extinction of California’s big animals. The findings, she says, are “eerily similar” to what’s happening in the area today. </p>
<p>Listen to <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast for the full interview with Emily Lindsey, plus some insights on the current state of wildfires in North America from Stacy Morford, environment and climate editor at The Conversation in the US. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2901/California_Wildfires_Transcript.docx.pdf?1699551646">full transcript</a> of this episode is now available. </p>
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<p><em>This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer of the show.</em></p>
<p><em>Newsclips in this episode are from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVFWcmzueo">CBS Evening News</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzpRxPJkZPs">NBC News</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Lindsey receives funding from the National Science Foundation, which funded some of the research reported in this article. </span></em></p>A changing climate, humans and fire were a deadly combination for the big animals that used to roam southern California. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973842023-02-01T16:00:30Z2023-02-01T16:00:30ZWestern wildfires destroyed 246% more homes and buildings over the past decade – fire scientists explain what’s changing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507476/original/file-20230201-25-abby5u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4456%2C2972&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The fire risk goes beyond rising temperatures and dry conditions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-shady-fire-can-be-seen-on-the-hillside-behind-homes-in-news-photo/1228763017">Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It can be tempting to think that the recent wildfire disasters in communities across the West were unlucky, one-off events, but evidence is accumulating that points to a trend.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">new study</a>, we found a 246% increase in the number of homes and structures destroyed by wildfires in the contiguous Western U.S. between the past two decades, 1999-2009 and 2010-2020.</p>
<p>This trend is strongly influenced by major fires in <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2017/">2017</a>, <a href="https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/event/92344/2018-fire-season-in-the-western-united-states">2018</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-year-the-west-was-burning-how-the-2020-wildfire-season-got-so-extreme-148804">2020</a>, including destructive fires in Paradise and Santa Rosa, California, and in Colorado, Oregon and Washington. In fact, in nearly every Western state, more homes and buildings were destroyed by wildfire over the past decade than the decade before, revealing increasing vulnerability to wildfire disasters.</p>
<p>What explains the increasing home and structure loss? </p>
<p>Surprisingly, it’s not just the trend of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020">burning more area</a>, or simply <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001795">more homes being built where fires historically burned</a>. While those trends play a role, increasing home and structure loss is outpacing both. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Streets with burned cars and nothing left of homes but ash." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507478/original/file-20230201-18-uh6uyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Entire neighborhoods were reduced to ash when a wildfire spread into Santa Rosa, California, in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-aerial-view-of-homes-that-were-destroyed-by-the-tubbs-news-photo/860298164">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>As fire scientists, we have spent decades studying the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6HxI4VAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">causes</a> and <a href="https://earthlab.colorado.edu/our-team/max-cook">impacts of wildfires</a>, in both <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LyjuxcEAAAAJ&hl=en">the recent</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Tmjced4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao%22%22">more distant past</a>. It’s clear that the current <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wildfire-crisis">wildfire crisis</a> in the Western U.S. has human fingerprints all over it. In our view, now more than ever, humanity needs to understand its role.</p>
<h2>Wildfires are becoming more destructive</h2>
<p>From 1999 to 2009, an average of 1.3 structures were destroyed for every 4 square miles burned (1,000 hectares, or 10 square kilometers). This average more than doubled to 3.4 during the following decade, 2010-2020.</p>
<p>Nearly every Western state lost more structures for every square mile burned, with the exception of New Mexico and Arizona. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Charts showing rising trend of loses from fires." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507398/original/file-20230131-12649-12yugh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">Adapted from Higuera, et al., PNAS Nexus 2023</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Humans increasingly cause destructive wildfires</h2>
<p>Given the damage from the wildfires you hear about on the news, you may be surprised to learn that <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">88% of wildfires in the West over the past two decades destroyed zero structures</a>. This is, in part, because the majority of area burned (65%) is still due to lightning-ignited wildfires, often in remote areas. </p>
<p>But among wildfires that do burn homes or other structures, humans play a disproportionate role – 76% over the past two decades were started by unplanned human-related ignitions, including backyard burning, downed power lines and campfires. The area burned from human-related ignitions rose 51% between 1999-2009 and 2010-2020.</p>
<p>This is important because wildfires started by human activities or infrastructure have <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-ignite-almost-every-wildfire-that-threatens-homes-145997">vastly different impacts</a> and characteristics that can make them more destructive. </p>
<p>Unplanned human ignitions typically <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/fire3030050">occur near buildings</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30030-2">tend to burn in grasses</a> that dry out easily and burn quickly. And people have built more homes and buildings in areas surrounded by flammable vegetation, with the number of structures <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">up by 40% over the past two decades across the West</a>, with every state contributing to the trend.</p>
<p>Human-caused wildfires also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617394114">expand the fire season</a> beyond the summer months when lightning is most common, and they are particularly destructive during late summer and fall when they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL092520">overlap with periods of high winds</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, of all the wildfires that destroy structures in the West, human-caused events typically <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">destroy over 10 times more</a> structures for every square mile burned, compared to lighting-caused events.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing where fires burned in 1999-2009 and 2010-2020, comparing lightning-sparked to human-ignition and the amount of structures burned from each. More structures were burned in human-started fires." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=667&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507514/original/file-20230201-19-uvb9zw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">Adapted from Higuera, et al., PNAS Nexus 2023</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The December 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings in the suburbs near Boulder, Colorado, <a href="https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/wildfire/marshall-fire/marshall-fire-cause-investigation-ignition-points/73-18bfe8fa-b034-4879-98ab-32af0008a1ec">fit this pattern to a T</a>. Powerful winds <a href="https://theconversation.com/devastating-colorado-fires-cap-a-year-of-climate-disasters-in-2021-with-one-side-of-the-country-too-wet-the-other-dangerously-dry-173402">sent the fire</a> racing through neighborhoods and vegetation that was unusually dry for late December. </p>
<p>As human-caused <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113">climate change</a> leaves vegetation more flammable later into each year, the consequences of accidental ignitions are magnified.</p>
<h2>Putting out all fires isn’t the answer</h2>
<p>This might make it easy to think that if we just put out all fires, we would be safer. Yet a focus on <a href="https://wildfiretoday.com/2022/03/03/bill-introduced-to-require-suppression-of-all-us-forest-service-fires/">stopping wildfires at all costs</a> is, in part, what <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-smokey-bear-to-climate-change-the-future-of-wildland-fire-management-45082">got the West into its current predicament</a>. Fire risks just accumulate for the future.</p>
<p>The amount of flammable vegetation has increased in many regions because of an absence of burning due to emphasizing fire suppression, preventing <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/58212">Indigenous fire stewardship</a> and a fear of fire in any context, well exemplified by <a href="https://theconversation.com/smokey-the-bear-is-still-keeping-his-watchful-eye-on-americas-forests-after-75-years-on-the-job-120207">Smokey Bear</a>. Putting out every fire quickly removes the positive, <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ecological-benefits-fire">beneficial effects of fires</a> in Western ecosystems, including clearing away hazardous fuels so future fires burn less intensely.</p>
<h2>How to reduce risk of destructive wildfires</h2>
<p>The good news is that people have the ability to affect change, now. Preventing wildfire disasters necessarily means minimizing unplanned human-related ignitions. And it requires more than <a href="https://smokeybear.com/">Smokey Bear’s</a> message that “only you can prevent forest fires.” Infrastructure, like downed power lines, <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5121/campfire_cause.pdf">has caused</a> some of the deadliest wildfires in recent years. </p>
<p>Reducing wildfire risks across communities, states and regions <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/58436">requires transformative changes</a> beyond individual actions. We need <a href="https://deloitte.wsj.com/articles/fighting-wildfires-with-innovation-01669832378?mod=Deloitte_sus_wsjsf_h1&tesla=y">innovative approaches</a> and <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac5c0c">perspectives</a> for <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-build-wildfire-resistant-communities-in-a-warming-world-174582">how we build</a>, provide power and <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/64f55848f690452da6c58e5a888ff283">manage lands</a>, as well as mechanisms that ensure changes work <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205825">across socioeconomic levels</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dot chart showing how each state's area and buildings burned changed. Calfiornia, Oregon and the West overall had above average loss and above average burning. Colorado had above average loss and below average burning." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507516/original/file-20230201-24-qtbg4i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005">Adapted from Higuera, et al., PNAS Nexus 2023</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Actions to reduce risk will vary, since how people live and how wildfires burn vary widely across the West. </p>
<p>States with large tracts of land with little development, like Idaho and Nevada, can accommodate widespread burning, largely from lighting ignition, with little structure loss. </p>
<p>California and Colorado, for example, require different approaches and priorities. Growing communities can <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/homes-risk/building-costs-codes/%22%22">carefully plan if and how they build</a> in flammable landscapes, support <a href="https://fireadapted.org/resource/potential-operational-delineations/">wildfire management for risks and benefits</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bringing-tech-innovation-to-wildfires-4-recommendations-for-smarter-firefighting-as-megafires-menace-the-us-162178">improve firefighting efforts</a> when wildfires do threaten communities.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080959">Climate change</a> remains the elephant in the room. Left unaddressed, warmer, drier conditions will exacerbate challenges of living with wildfires. And yet we can’t wait. Addressing climate change can be paired with <a href="https://theconversation.com/well-see-more-fire-seasons-like-2020-heres-a-strategy-for-managing-our-nations-flammable-landscapes-149323">reducing risks immediately to live more safely</a> in an increasingly flammable West.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Higuera receives funding from the federally funded Joint Fire Sciences Program, United States Geological Survey, and National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Balch receives funding from NSF, Deloitte, JFSP, OPP, and USGS.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxwell Cook receives funding from the federally funded Joint Fire Sciences Program and the Earth Lab at University of Colorado Boulder, and is a student member of the Ecological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Stavros receives funding from NSF, NASA, Southern California Edison, Deloitte, and AXA XL. She is affiliated with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, owns a company called WKID Solutions LLC and serves as a member on the Hazard Mitigation Enterprise Board for the Colorado State Emergency Response Program.</span></em></p>More homes are burning in wildfires in nearly every Western state. The reason? Humans.Philip Higuera, Professor of Fire Ecology, University of MontanaJennifer Balch, Associate Professor of Geography and Director, Earth Lab, University of Colorado BoulderMaxwell Cook, Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Geography, University of Colorado BoulderNatasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1653522021-08-19T12:08:34Z2021-08-19T12:08:34ZWhen hotter and drier means more – but eventually less – wildfire<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415783/original/file-20210812-19-75kq61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6038%2C4010&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Creek Fire burns near Shaver Lake, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada in September 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CaliforniaWildfires/fadd01e1646740c7ba63f68efdba0dc8/photo">AP Photo/Noah Berger</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is abundant evidence that changes in the climate, both <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/113/42/11770">increased temperature</a> and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/36/E8349">reduced precipitation</a>, are making wildfires worse in the western U.S. The relationship between climate and wildfire seems obvious and universal: hotter + drier = more and worse wildfire.</p>
<p>Yet the diversity of wildland areas in the western U.S. means that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1420">not all ecosystems respond in the same way</a> to a hotter and drier climate. Understanding how and why climate change has different effects on wildfire is essential for effective management of our natural areas. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A satellite-view map showing fire area with Yellowstone, the Sierra Nevada and the Sonoran Desert ecoregions marked" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414006/original/file-20210730-25-14i23th.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All wildfires over about 12 acres in size from 1984-2019. Red indicates fires from 2010-2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mtbs.gov/viewer/index.html">Jeremy Littell</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why do areas respond differently?</h2>
<p>Similar to campfires, wildfires require fuel to burn: parts of trees and shrubs, the leaves, twigs and branches. Dried grasses, too, will work. The growth of this vegetation depends on water, and water availability depends on the climate.</p>
<p>How hot and dry the climate is in an area influences the amount of fuel that is available to burn and the strength of the relationship between wildfire and climate. <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=36K8XrUAAAAJ&hl=en">Ecologists</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VEf_brUAAAAJ&hl=en">such as</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=-lHGpDIAAAAJ">us</a> calculate how closely related wildfire area burned is to how hot and dry it is during the summer, and we have found that the relationship does indeed vary.</p>
<p>Areas that are historically cool and wet have a lot of fuel, but the fuel has to be dry enough to burn, so the relationship in these areas between wildfire and climate is very strong. Areas that are historically warm and dry have less fuel, often not enough fuel for a large wildfire even if it is very dry.</p>
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<p>Let’s consider one extreme. The Sonoran Desert in Arizona is persistently hot and dry, and vegetation is sparse. The dryness of the summer, what we call the “summer water deficit,” does not control the extent and severity of wildfires. Summer is almost always hot and dry enough to burn, and how much it burns depends on the amount of fuel. No matter how much hotter and drier the climate becomes, wildfire is not going to increase unless more fuel appears on the landscape. Unfortunately, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2111/REM-D-09-00151.1">exotic grasses that are adapted to wildfire</a> are invading much of the American Southwest, including the Sonoran Desert, providing that extra fuel.</p>
<p>At the other extreme are mountain forests, such as Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding area, that have abundant vegetation and fuel and are cooler and wetter. There, the amount of land that burns is strongly related to the summer water deficit. Hotter and drier summers are likely to increase wildfire activity.</p>
<p>What about areas in between these two extremes?</p>
<h2>Where hotter and drier can eventually mean less fire</h2>
<p>In California, wildfires in the dry forests of the Sierra Nevada are partly controlled by summer water deficit. For a while, hotter and drier summers are likely to increase the amount of land burned each year. </p>
<p>We ran <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3657">computer simulations</a> of the interactions among climate, plant growth and wildfire for one area within the Sierra Nevada. In the first decade of the simulations, an initial burst of large areas burned each year. This first pulse of wildfire burned more area in a scenario with increased drought and temperature than in the historical climate, just as we are seeing in the recent extreme fire seasons in the Sierra Nevada. </p>
<p>Over time, however, climate change will modify how plants grow. Persistently hotter and drier climate over decades will increase <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1165000">the number of dead and dying trees</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1571">decrease new growth</a>. Eventually less fuel is available to burn as the dead trees decompose and fewer live ones replace them. </p>
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<p>The same computer simulations show that the initial pulse of wildfires removes a lot of dense vegetation, and subsequent fires become smaller compared with fires in historical climate conditions and with increased drought and temperature. Furthermore, because hotter and drier conditions can eventually lead to less fuel development, the wildfire area burned over 60 years <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3657">may be smaller</a> with increased drought and temperature than in the historical climate. </p>
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<p>Less wildfire due to climate change may sound like good news, but how it occurs is not necessarily a desirable outcome for these forests. In the simulations, reduced wildfire is a consequence of extreme water limitation that results in reduced forest biomass. This means less tree growth and more dying trees that eventually result in a thinner and less productive forest. If the climate changes enough, the trees may even be replaced by shrubs, which have their own unique relationship between climate and wildfire.</p>
<h2>The problem with quickly putting out every fire</h2>
<p>Human actions, in particular <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jof/article-abstract/92/1/39/4635874">putting out every fire</a>, have changed how dry forests burn. </p>
<p>Some fires are started by lightning, but Indigenous peoples burned the landscape frequently, reducing fuels, so the spread and intensity of subsequent wildfires was more limited. After European colonization, the U.S. government spent more than a century actively suppressing wildfires. As a result, many forests became choked with excess fuels. Even without climate change, excess fuels <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)1939-5582.climate-change-and-westernwildfires">increase the wildfire hazard</a>. </p>
<p>The effect of that fire suppression on current wildfire hazards can also vary from region to region. </p>
<p>In cooler and wetter areas, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78e">climate change can have a stronger effect</a> on wildfires than fire suppression. These are the areas with naturally abundant fuel and strong relationships between climate and wildfire. In drier systems, where fuels were historically low and had limited wildfire spread, suppression over the past century can have a stronger effect on current wildfire hazard than in wetter areas. It is important to consider climate change, regional characteristics and land management, all of which affect the fuels that are available to burn in a wildfire.</p>
<h2>What to do about wildfire</h2>
<p>There is no single solution to the increasing wildfire activity and declining health of forests.</p>
<p>The global solution would be to slow and eventually reverse climate change. More locally, combining prescribed fires, which are intentionally set in relatively mild weather conditions, with mechanical removal of small trees and ground fuels is the best way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2016.05.021">prevent more severe wildfires</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-years-of-fighting-every-wildfire-helped-fuel-the-western-megafires-of-today-163165">Increasing the use of prescribed fire or allowing wildfires to burn</a> under safe conditions can restore some forests to be more resilient – those that have excess fuel from fire suppression – and reduce the hazards that the western U.S. is seeing now. Past wildfires can limit the spread of new wildfires by reducing the amount of vegetation and fuel available to burn.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1737/AnnualFiresCumulate.gif?1627675461" width="100%"> </p><figure><figcaption><span class="caption">Wildfire burn perimeters near Yosemite National Park, Calif., 2000-2019. The largest is the 2013 Rim Fire. <a href="https://www.mtbs.gov/">MTBS</a></span></figcaption></figure><p></p>
<p>Over the past five years, wildfires in the U.S. burned an <a href="https://www.nifc.gov/sites/default/files/document-media/SuppCosts.pdf">average of 7.8 million acres annually</a>, which cost an average of US$2.4 billion per year to fight. </p>
<p>Managing forests in the face of the threat of larger, more severe wildfires in a warming climate presents a huge challenge to fire managers, given the costs of treatments and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.5849/jof.16-067">millions of acres that could benefit from them</a>. Plenty of wildland is still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00294.1">primed to burn</a>, and understanding the intricate relationship among climate, fuels and wildfire can help managers prioritize areas where more fire will be beneficial and areas where different approaches may be preferred.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maureen C Kennedy receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the US Forest Service. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Don McKenzie received funding from the US Forest Service. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Littell receives funding from the United States Geological Survey. </span></em></p>Not all forests respond to hotter and drier conditions in the same way.Maureen C Kennedy, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Fire Ecology, University of WashingtonDon McKenzie, Professor of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of WashingtonJeremy Littell, Research Ecologist - Climate Impacts, US Geological SurveyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623852021-06-29T12:06:07Z2021-06-29T12:06:07ZTrees are dying of thirst in the Western drought – here’s what’s going on inside their veins<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407983/original/file-20210623-23-bowemi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C66%2C4025%2C2951&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Juniper trees, common in Arizona's Prescott National Forest, have been dying with the drought.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DroughtFireSeason/f2eaf0e6444141b5ba4e66133dbfb0c1/photo">Benjamin Roe/USDA Forest Service via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like humans, trees need water to survive on hot, dry days, and they can survive for only short times under extreme heat and dry conditions.</p>
<p>During <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/drought-california-western-united-states.html">prolonged droughts</a> and extreme <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010836214/all-time-records-fall-as-a-heat-wave-roasts-the-northwest-u-s">heat waves</a> like the Western U.S. is experiencing, even native trees that are accustomed to the local climate can start to die.</p>
<p>Central and northern Arizona have been witnessing this in recent months. A long-running drought and resulting water stress have contributed to <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/prescott/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD904406">the die-off of as many as 30% of the junipers</a> there, according to the U.S. Forest Service. In California, <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/topics/tree_mortality/california/documents/DroughtFactSheet_R5_2017.pdf">over 129 million trees</a> died as a consequence of a severe drought in the last decade, leaving highly flammable dry wood that can fuel future wildfires. </p>
<p>Firefighters are now closely watching these and other areas with dead or dying trees as <a href="https://theconversation.com/another-dangerous-fire-season-is-looming-in-the-western-u-s-and-the-drought-stricken-region-is-headed-for-a-water-crisis-160848">another extremely dry year</a> heightens the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix146">fire risk</a>.</p>
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<h2>What happens to trees during droughts?</h2>
<p>Trees survive by moving water from their roots to their leaves, a process known as vascular water transport.</p>
<p>Water moves through small cylindrical conduits, called tracheids or vessels, that are all connected. Drought disrupts the water transport by reducing the amount of water available for the tree. As moisture in the air and soil decline, air bubbles can form in the vascular system of plants, creating embolisms that block the water’s flow.</p>
<p>The less water that is available for trees during dry and hot periods, the higher the chances of embolisms forming in those water conduits. If a tree can’t get water to its leaves, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0248-x">it can’t survive</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407589/original/file-20210622-28-12br6ct.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dyed cross section of a ponderosa pine sapling shows the water transport tissue and conduits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raquel Partelli Feltrin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some species are more resistant to embolisms than others. This is why <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/45079">more pinon pines died</a> in the Southwest during the drought in the early 2000s than juniper – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2008.02436.x">juniper are much more resistant</a>.</p>
<p>Drought stress also weakens trees, leaving them susceptible to bark beetle infestations. During the 2012-2015 drought in the Sierra Nevada, <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/fettig/psw_2019_fettig002.pdf">nearly 90% of the ponderosa pines died</a>, primarily due to infestations of western pine beetles. </p>
<h2>Fire damage + drought also weakens trees</h2>
<p>Although fire is <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/5425/benifitsoffire.pdf">beneficial for fire-prone forests</a> to control their density and maintain their health, our research shows that trees under drought stress are more likely to die from fires. During droughts, trees have less water for insulation and cooling against fires. They may also reduce their production of carbohydrates – tree food – during droughts, which leaves them weaker, making it <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/fire3040056">harder for them to recover from fire damage</a>.</p>
<p>Trees that suffer trunk damage in a fire are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.13881">less likely to survive in the following years</a> if drought follows. When trees have fire scars, their vascular conduits tend to be less functional for water transport around those scars. Traumatic damage to the vascular tissue can also decrease their resistance to embolisms.</p>
<p>So, burned trees are more likely to die from drought; and trees in drought are more likely to die from fire.</p>
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<h2>What does this mean for future forests?</h2>
<p>Trees in Western forests have been dying at an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12380-6">alarming rate</a> over the past two decades due to droughts, high temperatures, pests and fires. As continuing greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet and drive moisture loss, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22314-w">increasing the frequency, duration and intensity of droughts</a>, research shows the U.S. and much of the world will likely witness more widespread tree deaths.</p>
<p>The impact that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001736">changing drought and fire regimes</a> will have on forests farther in the future is still somewhat unclear, but several observations may offer some insight.</p>
<p>There is evidence of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaa061">transition from forests</a> to shrublands or grasslands in parts of the Western U.S. Frequent burning in the same area can reinforce this transition. When drought or fire alone kills some of the trees, the forests often regenerate, but how long it will take for forests to recover to a pre-fire or pre-drought condition after a large-scale die-off or severe fire is unknown.</p>
<p>In the past decade, the Western U.S. has witnessed its most severe droughts in over 1,000 years, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL062433">including in the Southwest and California</a>. A recent study found subalpine forests in the central Rockies are more fire-prone now than they have been in <a href="https://theconversation.com/rocky-mountain-forests-burning-more-now-than-any-time-in-the-past-2-000-years-162383">at least 2,000 years</a>. </p>
<p>If there is no change in greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures will continue to increase, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04141">severe drought stress</a> and <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/53306">fire danger days</a> will rise as a result.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rocky-mountain-forests-burning-more-now-than-any-time-in-the-past-2-000-years-162383">Rocky Mountain forests burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Johnson receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Forest Service.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raquel Partelli Feltrin's Ph.D work at University of Idaho was funded by the grants from the National Science Foundation, Joint Fire Science Program and USDA.</span></em></p>Without enough water, trees can develop embolisms, similar to blockages in human blood vessels, and they’re more likely to die from drought or fires.Daniel Johnson, Assistant Professor of Tree Physiology and Forest Ecology, University of GeorgiaRaquel Partelli Feltrin, Postdoctoral Scholar in Botany, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1608482021-05-13T18:17:51Z2021-05-13T18:17:51ZAnother dangerous fire season is looming in the Western U.S., and the drought-stricken region is headed for a water crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400429/original/file-20210512-15-zn285c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C134%2C2869%2C1859&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dry conditions across the West follow a hot, dry year of record-setting wildfires in 2020. Communities were left with scenes like this, from California's Creek Fire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Amir Aghakouchak/University of California Irvine</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just about every indicator of drought is flashing red across the western U.S. after a dry winter and warm early spring. The <a href="https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/gis/snow.html">snowpack is at less than half</a> of normal in much of the region. Reservoirs are being drawn down, river levels are dropping and soils are drying out.</p>
<p>It’s only May, and states are already considering water use restrictions to make the supply last longer. California’s governor <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-mean-more-multiyear-snow-droughts-in-the-west-121406">declared a drought emergency</a> in 41 of 58 counties. In Utah, irrigation water providers are <a href="https://www.ksl.com/article/50163525/as-water-managers-warn-of-worst-on-record-drought-what-do-people-think-should-be-done-to-save-water">increasing fines</a> for overuse. Some Idaho ranchers are talking about <a href="https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/states/id/webftp/wsor/2021/borid521.pdf">selling off livestock</a> because rivers and reservoirs they rely on are dangerously low and irrigation demand for farms is only just beginning.</p>
<p>Scientists are also closely watching the impact that the rapid warming and drying is having on trees, worried that water stress could lead to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210502031159/https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/">widespread</a> <a href="https://weatherwest.com/archives/9141">tree deaths</a>. Dead and drying vegetation means more fuel for what is already expected to be <a href="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/secint-secag-direction-to-wildland-fire-leadership-05-13-2021.pdf">another dangerous fire season</a>.</p>
<p>U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters on May 13, 2021, that federal fire officials had <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-05-13/another-tough-fire-year-is-coming-to-california-and-the-west-federal-officials-say">warned them to prepare for an extremely active fire year</a>. “We used to call it fire season, but wildland fires now extend throughout the entire year, burning hotter and growing more catastrophic in drier conditions due to climate change,” <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-and-agriculture-departments-outline-wildland-fire-preparedness-climate">Vilsack said</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tGGNDyUAAAAJ&hl=en">As</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mzKgvrIAAAAJ&hl=en">climate</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S1J4kAoAAAAJ&hl=en">scientists</a>, we track these changes. Right now, <a href="https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/">about 84%</a> of the western U.S. is under some level of drought, and <a href="https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/">there is no sign of relief</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Color-coded map showing drought" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400585/original/file-20210513-14-nnldhg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. Drought Monitor for mid-May shows nearly half of the West in severe or extreme drought.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/">National Drought Mitigation Center/USDA/NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The many faces of drought</h2>
<p>Several types of drought are converging in the West this year, and all are at or near record levels.</p>
<p>When too little rain and snow falls, it’s known as meteorological drought. In April, precipitation across large parts of the West was less than <a href="https://wrcc.dri.edu/wwdt/images/ARCHIVE/pon1/202104_ww_cl.png">10% of normal</a>, and the lack of rain continued into May.</p>
<p>Rivers, lakes, streams and <a href="https://theconversation.com/water-wells-are-at-risk-of-going-dry-in-the-us-and-worldwide-160147">groundwater</a> can get into what’s known as hydrological drought when their water levels fall. Many states are now warning about low streamflow after a winter with less-than-normal snowfall and warm spring temperatures speeding up melting. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced it would <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/#/news-release/3850">cut off water</a> to a canal serving farms in the Klamath Project on the Oregon-California border because of low water supplies. It also warned that Lake Mead, a giant Colorado River reservoir that provides water for millions of people, is on pace to fall to levels in June that <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2021/04/18/water-shortage-colorado-western-states-declaration/">could trigger the first federal water shortage declaration</a>, with water use restrictions across the region. </p>
<p>Dwindling soil moisture leads to another problem, known as agricultural drought. The average soil moisture levels in the western U.S. in April were <a href="https://twitter.com/peedublya/status/1391860524388806656">at or near their lowest levels in over 120 years of observations</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four US maps showing drought levels of precipitation, vapor pressure deficit, evapotranspiration and streamflow" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400640/original/file-20210513-12-8ku22c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Four signs of drought.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://climatetoolbox.org/tool/Historical-Water-Watcher">Climate Toolbox</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These factors can all drive ecosystems beyond their thresholds – into a condition called ecological drought – and the results can be dangerous and costly. Fish hatcheries in Northern California <a href="https://kfgo.com/2021/05/13/as-drought-dries-california-rivers-salmon-take-truck-rides-to-sea/">have started trucking</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-droughts-fish-oceans-salmon-8bf0c5c8565bed7fdfe2164b5d0c8573">their salmon to the Pacific Ocean</a>, rather than releasing them into rivers, because the river water is expected to be at historic low levels and too warm for young salmon to tolerate. </p>
<h2>Snow drought</h2>
<p>One of the West’s biggest water problems this year is the low snowpack.</p>
<p>The western U.S. is critically dependent on winter snow slowly melting in the mountains and providing a steady supply of water during the dry summer months. But the amount of water in snowpack is <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-mean-more-multiyear-snow-droughts-in-the-west-121406">on the decline</a> here and across much of the world as global temperatures rise.</p>
<p>Several states are already seeing how that can play out. Federal scientists in Utah warned in early May that more water from the snowpack is sinking into the dry ground where it fell this year, <a href="https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ut/snow/waterproducts/?cid=nrcseprd1722241">rather than running off</a> to supply streams and rivers. With the state’s snowpack at 52% of normal, streamflows are expected to be well below normal through the summer, with some places at less than 20%.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Map of western U.S. showing many areas with low snowpack" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400423/original/file-20210512-16-cf2rxt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Snowpack is typically measured by the amount of water it holds, known as snow water equivalent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/west_swepctnormal_update.pdf">National Resource Conservation Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anthropogenic drought</h2>
<p>It’s important to understand that drought today <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2019RG000683">isn’t only about nature</a>.</p>
<p>More people are moving into the U.S. West, increasing demand for water and irrigated farmland. And global warming – driven by human activities like the burning of fossil fuels – is now <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/3/">fueling more widespread and intense droughts</a> in the region. These two factors act as additional straws pulling water from an already scarce resource.</p>
<p>As demand for water has increased, the West is pumping out more groundwater for irrigation and other needs. <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/conceptual-groundwater-flow-diagram">Centuries-old groundwater</a> reserves in aquifers can provide resilience against droughts if they are used sustainably. But groundwater reserves <a href="http://water.columbia.edu/files/2014/03/USGW_WhitePaper_FINAL.pdf">recharge slowly</a>, and the West is seeing a decline in those resources, mostly because water use for agriculture outpaces their recharge. Water levels in some wells have dropped at a rate of <a href="http://water.columbia.edu/files/2014/03/USGW_WhitePaper_FINAL.pdf">6.5 feet (2 meters) per year</a>.</p>
<p>The result is that these regions are less able to manage droughts when nature does bring hot, dry conditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Fish pour out of a pipe into a bay." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400436/original/file-20210513-13-a7vjz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">California fish hatcheries have started trucking their salmon to the Pacific Ocean because the rivers they are usually released into are too low and warm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CaliforniaDroughtStrugglingSalmon/6a0574fecb3a4507afa9c991d2eb0730/photo">AP Photo/Rich Podroncelli</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rising global temperatures also play several roles in drought. They influence whether precipitation falls as snow or rain, how quickly snow melts and, importantly, how quickly the land, trees and vegetation <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1633">dry out</a>.</p>
<p>Extreme heat and droughts can <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz4571">intensify one another</a>. Solar radiation causes water to evaporate, drying the soil and air. With less moisture, the soil and air then heat up, which dries the soil even more. The result is extremely dry trees and grasses that can quickly burn when fires break out, and also thirstier soils that demand more irrigation.</p>
<p>Alarmingly, the trigger for the drying and warming cycle has been changing. In the 1930s, lack of precipitation used to trigger this cycle, but <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz4571">excess heat has initiated the process in recent decades</a>. As global warming increases temperatures, soil moisture evaporates earlier and at larger rates, drying out soils and triggering the warming and drying cycle. </p>
<h2>Fire warnings ahead</h2>
<p>Hot, dry conditions in the West last year fueled a <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/events">record-breaking wildfire season</a> that included the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-year-the-west-was-burning-how-the-2020-wildfire-season-got-so-extreme-148804">largest fires on record</a> in Colorado and California.</p>
<p>As drought persists, the chance of large, disastrous fires increases. The seasonal outlook of <a href="https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=2">warmer and drier-than-normal conditions for summer</a> and fire season outlooks by federal agencies suggest another <a href="https://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/outlooks.htm">tough, long fire year is ahead</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p><em>This article was updated with a statement from Secretaries Deb Haaland and Tom Vilsack.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mojtaba Sadegh receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amir AghaKouchak receives funding from National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Abatzoglou receives funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Drought conditions are so bad, fish hatcheries are trucking their salmon to the ocean and ranchers are worried about having enough water for their livestock.Mojtaba Sadegh, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State UniversityAmir AghaKouchak, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, IrvineJohn Abatzoglou, Associate Professor of Engineering, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1514342021-01-05T14:50:04Z2021-01-05T14:50:04Z2020 was a terrible year for climate disasters, but there are reasons for hope in 2021<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375967/original/file-20201218-13-195w2lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C144%2C1166%2C736&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mural attributed to Banksy that appeared by Marble Arch, in London, during the Extinction Rebellion protests in April 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:From_this_moment_despair_ends.jpg">(Andrew Davidson/Wikimedia)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate disasters started early in 2020 — and kept on coming.</p>
<p>The catastrophic <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043">fires in Australia</a> in early 2020 were actually a holdover from 2019, but they were soon followed by <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/25/jakarta-floods-2020-indonesia-capital/4865913002/">flooding in Indonesia</a>, a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/live-updates-cyclone-amphan-intl-hnk/index.html">super-cyclone hitting the coast of India and Bangladesh</a> and then more flooding, this time <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kenya-deadly-floods-1.5557400">in Kenya</a> and wide swaths of <a href="https://guardian.ng/apo-press-releases/west-and-central-africa-flooding-situation-as-of-25-september-2020/">Central and West Africa</a>. </p>
<p>Next came the record-breaking fires in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/01/brazil-amazon-rainforest-worst-fires-in-decade">Brazilian Amazon</a>, South America’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02716-4">pantanal wetlands</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-fires-damage-climate-change-analysis/">California</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-wildfire-climate-change-evacuations-grand-county/">Colorado</a>, followed by a historic <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/weather/record-breaking-atlantic-hurricane-season-wrap-up/index.html">hurricane season in the Atlantic</a>, including two apocalyptic hurricanes in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/20/iota-flooding-central-america/">Nicaragua and Honduras</a>. </p>
<p>With terrible symmetry, 2020 ended with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/01/catastrophic-bushfire-on-queenslands-fraser-island-threatens-ecological-disaster">bushfires consuming more than half of K’gari, a World Heritage site and island off the coast of Queensland, Australia</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man running with a bucket near a fire and a pickup truck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375957/original/file-20201218-15-179y3kd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A volunteer tries to douse a fire on Transpantaneira road in the Pantanal wetlands near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, on Sept. 11, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andre Penner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A popular refrain on social media notes that while 2020 was among the hottest on record and one of the worst years for climate disasters, it is also likely to be among the coolest and calmest for years to come. During a speech at Columbia University in December, UN Secretary General António Guterres put it bluntly: “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/un-secretary-general-speaks-state-planet">The state of the planet is broken</a>.”</p>
<p>But now is <a href="https://medium.com/@maryheglar/home-is-always-worth-it-d2821634dcd9">not the time for despair</a>. </p>
<h2>Hope is found in uncertainty</h2>
<p>All this bad climate news has the potential to generate climate despair, numbing those watching the next tragedy unfold. </p>
<p>Climate despair is a growing phenomena, noted in the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5w374/climate-despair-is-making-people-give-up-on-life">popular media</a> and in academic research in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30102-9">public health</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su8010006">education</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/ethicsenviro.19.1.31">ethics</a> and <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/05/19/climate-stoicism-overcome-despair/">philosophy</a>. Psychologists even coined the term “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F10398560701701288">solastalgia</a>” to denote distress caused by environmental damage and loss. Climate despair is feeling with certainty that “we’re screwed,” that the worst impacts of climate change are inevitable and can no longer be stopped. </p>
<p>Despair feels reasonable given what we’re learning about climate change and seeing in the news. But it is a temptation that should be resisted. </p>
<p>Rebecca Solnit argues that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown">hope is found in uncertainty</a> — that the future is not set. Even given torrents of bad news, there are a number of reasons for hope. And 2020 could indeed be the turning point. </p>
<p>It has to be. </p>
<h2>Science, politics and hope</h2>
<p>To be clear, climate despair does not square with current scientific understandings. We are in trouble, not screwed. </p>
<p>Actions taken now and in the next decade, individually and collectively, <a href="https://www.allwecansave.earth/">can make a difference</a>. The news on climate impacts and climate science may feel like a march of doom, but climate scientists argue that it’s <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063719007">not too late to act</a> and there is uncertainty in the <a href="https://www.inverse.com/science/kate-marvel-climate-crisis-future-50-interview">extent of climate impacts</a> we have guaranteed ourselves. We have not reached the <a href="https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-tipping-points-future/">point of no return</a>.</p>
<p>In some ways, climate despair is the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/lawrence-weschler-beyond-climate-denial-and-despair/616698/">new climate denial</a>, dulling the sense of urgency and blunting the momentum for action. It is a discourse <a href="https://forge.medium.com/how-to-lift-the-paralysis-of-climate-change-despair-da30e93f0b38">that paralyzes</a> when paralysis is what we can least afford. The discourse of despair strengthens the grip of the status quo and can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People walking in front of a poster." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375955/original/file-20201218-17-1gbu63y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People walk past a poster for Greta Thunberg’s book in Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So hope is good science, and that’s good for politics. Opportunities to expand the space of uncertainty at the root of hope are right in front of us. While the climate impacts have been terrible in 2020, there has never been as much momentum for political action on climate change as there is now:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The first truly global social movement dedicated to climate action and climate justice has gained in size and strength, beginning with Greta Thunberg’s <a href="https://fridaysforfuture.org/">Fridays for the Future</a> and spreading to the <a href="https://www.sunrisemovement.org/?ms=SunriseMovement">Sunrise movement</a> in the U.S. and <a href="https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/">climate justice movements</a> around the world.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/12/worlds-biggest-sovereign-wealth-fund-to-ditch-fossil-fuels">Large-scale capital continues to flee from fossil fuel investments</a>, which are rapidly <a href="https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Wave-Of-Big-Oil-Write-Downs-Is-Far-From-Over.html">losing value</a>. According to <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3634572">a recent study</a> by political scientists Jeff Colgan, Jessica Green and Thomas Hale, this shifting financial ground promises to upend the politics of climate change in important ways, as vested interests lose political power.</p></li>
<li><p>The initial pandemic response demonstrated how societies and economies can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x">pivot very quickly</a> in response to an emergency. The longer-term plans for post-pandemic recovery provide an enormous window of opportunity to “<a href="http://policyresponse.ca/covid-19-recovery-is-chance-to-build-greener-more-inclusive-society/">build back better</a>,” although this idea does not have <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/coronavirus-tracking-how-the-worlds-green-recovery-plans-aim-to-cut-emissions">universal uptake</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>The Paris Agreement survived the withdrawal of the U.S., which is poised to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/20/biden-to-rejoin-paris-climate-accord-heres-what-happens-next-.html">rejoin after Joe Biden is sworn in as president</a>. Momentum around the agreement was clear at the Climate Ambition Summit where <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/news/75-leaders-announce-new-commitments-during-climate-ambition-summit/">75 countries announced new national commitments</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>The ranks of countries that have made <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/commitments-to-net-zero-double-in-less-than-a-year">net-zero commitments is swelling</a> and a <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/global-update-paris-agreement-turning-point/">new report</a> suggests that the cumulative effect of countries’ recent pledges (if fully achieved) could keep warming to 2.1 C by 2100, putting a key Paris Agreement goal within reach.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These trends aren’t a guarantee that we have turned the political corner. The forces arrayed against the kind of changes we need are vast and powerful. It will take an enormous amount of energy, resources and action for these promising trends to fulfil their potential and turn the tide of climate change. </p>
<p>But they can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0618-2">disrupt the status quo</a>. They can create space for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00561">catalytic action</a>. They can enhance the uncertainty that keeps despair at bay. They provide hope. </p>
<h2>Reject despair</h2>
<p>This motivating hope, or what political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon calls <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/221940/commanding-hope-by-thomas-homer-dixon/9780307363169">commanding hope</a>, is not just scientifically valid and politically astute, it is the only viable moral choice. </p>
<p>The iron law of climate change is that those least responsible for causing the problem face the worst consequences. The opposite is true as well — those most responsible for causing climate change tend to be the safest from it. According to Oxfam, the richest one per cent of the population globally “<a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity">are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity</a>.” </p>
<p>Too many people and communities do not have the luxury of saying “isn’t that a shame, too bad we can’t do anything” about climate change. They aren’t safe, and it’s not their fault. </p>
<p>Rejecting despair, embracing the uncertainty of hope, is the least that individuals, communities and societies that are relatively safe from climate change owe vulnerable communities. </p>
<p>With 2020 left behind, there is hope in facing the climate crisis, for movement toward a just transition to an <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200709123354-rvo20">equitable low-carbon world</a>. Seeing that hope fulfilled in 2021 and beyond means summoning <a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/kate-marvel-we-need-courage-not-hope-to-face-climate-change/">courage</a>, <a href="https://davidsuzuki.org/story/finding-hope-joy-and-community-in-the-climate-movement/">joy</a> and sometimes even <a href="https://popula.com/2019/08/19/the-case-for-climate-rage/">rage</a>, fiercely clinging to and expanding the uncertainty of the future. </p>
<p>Most importantly, 2021 needs to be the year known for acting, individually and collectively, with the urgency and scale the climate crisis demands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Hoffmann receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is affiliated with Green Economy Canada.</span></em></p>While climate change is certain, some uncertainty remains in its severity — and that’s where the hope shines through.Matthew Hoffmann, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director Environmental Governance Lab, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1465322020-10-13T13:28:04Z2020-10-13T13:28:04ZRestoring California’s forests to reduce wildfire risks will take time, billions of dollars and a broad commitment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361799/original/file-20201006-16-342db2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5296%2C2982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mixed-conifer forest in the central Sierra Nevada after restoration, with unthinned forest in the background.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roger Bales</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As California contends with its <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/californias-worst-wildfire-season-ever-is-about-to-get-uglier">worst wildfire season in history</a>, it’s more evident than ever that land management practices in the state’s forested mountains need major changes. </p>
<p>Many of California’s 33 million acres of forests face widespread threats stemming from past management choices. Today the U.S. Forest Service estimates that of the 20 million acres it manages in California, <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r5/landmanagement/?cid=stelprdb5412095">6-9 million acres need to be restored</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/22209">Forest restoration</a> basically means removing the less fire-resistant smaller trees and returning to a forest with larger trees that are widely spaced. These stewardship projects require partnerships across the many interests who benefit from healthy forests, to help bring innovative financing to this huge challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Thinned and unthinned forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362782/original/file-20201009-23-15jzgls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Treated forest (left) and untreated forest (right), central Sierra Nevada. Note the prevalence of small trees and higher density of stems on the right, and the openings between trees on the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martha Conklin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are engineers who work on many <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S2cxf2IAAAAJ&hl=en">natural</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=j3xbtKsAAAAJ&hl=en">resource</a> challenges, including forest management. We’re encouraged to see California and other western states striving to use forest management to reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire. </p>
<p>But there are major bottlenecks. They include scarce resources and limited engagement between forest managers and many local, regional and state agencies and organizations that have roles to play in managing forests. </p>
<p>However, some of these groups are forming local partnerships to work with land managers and develop innovative financing strategies. We see these partnerships as key to increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration.</p>
<h2>Dry, crowded forests</h2>
<p>Many conifer forests in the western United States <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2013.09.041">contain too many trees</a>, packed too closely together. This crowding is a result of past <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1622">management practices that suppressed wildfires</a> and prioritized timber harvesting. In recent years, climate warming, accumulation of dead wood on the forest floor and a buildup of small trees – which serve as “ladder fuels,” moving fire from the forest floor up into the canopy – have led to <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-forest-management-have-both-fueled-todays-epic-western-wildfires-146247">hotter, larger wildfires</a>. </p>
<p>Under contemporary conditions, trees in California’s forests experience increased competition for water. The exceptionally warm <a href="https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-latest-drought/">2011-2015 California drought</a> contributed to the death of over 100 million trees. As the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0388-5">forest’s water demand</a> exceeded the amount available during the drought, water-stressed trees succumbed to insect attacks.</p>
<p>Funding is a significant barrier to scaling up treatments. Nearly half of the Forest Service’s annual budget is <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-perfect-storm-of-factors-is-making-wildfires-bigger-and-more-expensive-to-control-100800">spent on fighting wildfires</a>, which is important for protecting communities and other built infrastructure. But this means the agency can restore only a fraction of the acres that need treatment each year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Forest in mountainous area encroaching close to homes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362348/original/file-20201008-22-1u7fagv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overstocked forests, particularly around communities like this one in the northern Sierra Nevada, pose a high risk of high-severity wildfire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martha Conklin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The benefits of restoration</h2>
<p>Forest restoration provides many benefits in addition to reducing the risk of high-severity wildfires. It reduces tree deaths and provides a foundation for sustaining <a href="https://forest-atlas.fs.fed.us/benefits-carbon-stocks.html">carbon stored in trees and soil</a>. Removing trees <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125364">reduces water use in the forest</a>, making more water available for the remaining trees, for in-stream flows and for food production and urban areas downstream. </p>
<p>Increased streamflow also enhances electricity generation from hydropower plants, offsetting use of fossil fuels to produce electricity and contributing to state <a href="https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/ab-32-climate-change-scoping-plan">greenhouse gas reduction initiatives</a>.</p>
<p>Restoring forests reduces the erosion that often follows wildfires when rain loosens exposed soil, damaging roads, power lines and ecosystems and depositing sediments in reservoirs. And it improves rural mountain economies by supporting local jobs. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PzQeyu-ZIjg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The French Meadows Forest Restoration Project is an innovative public-private partnership to improve watershed health and restore the landscape’s historic fire regime.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mountain headwater forests are an integral part of California’s <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2480">water infrastructure</a>. They store winter snow and rain and release moisture slowly to rivers for downstream irrigation and municipal supplies during the state’s dry summers. That’s why supporting forest restoration is also gaining traction with <a href="https://www.acwa.com/resources/improved-management-of-californias-headwaters">downstream water and hydropower providers</a>.</p>
<p>Residents across the western U.S. had weeks of unhealthy air this summer owing to smoke from wildfires. Short of curbing climate change that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-forest-management-have-both-fueled-todays-epic-western-wildfires-146247">making forests more flammable</a>, reducing fuels is the best tool to lower smoke emissions. </p>
<p>Like many others, we both find that spending time in mountain conifer forests is a great <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/579709/forest-bathing-by-dr-qing-li/9780525559856">source of renewal</a>. We believe that many people who live in, visit, or wish to sustain healthy mountain forests would be willing to support public investments in forest restoration. </p>
<p>Finding ways to monetize the value of less obvious benefits, such as ecological health and biodiversity, could help drive that investment. </p>
<h2>Expanding partnerships</h2>
<p>What’s the best way to create more public-private partnerships to scale up forest restoration? Two current ventures in the <a href="https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/photos/FMPFactsheet2-27-19final.pdf">American</a> and <a href="https://yubariver.org/n-yuba-forest-partnership/">Yuba</a> river basins of the central Sierra Nevada offer <a href="https://www.scienceforconservation.org/products/restoring-forests-through-partnership">lessons to build on</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"911819231683076101"}"></div></p>
<p>First, it takes a dozen or more dedicated partners to plan, fund and carry out these projects. Under contracts called stewardship agreements, the Forest Service – which owns the land – does the environmental assessment and provides oversight. Project partners plan, carry out and finance forest treatments. </p>
<p>Second, depending on what kind of treatment they use, restoration can cost from US$700 to $4,000 per acre. This funding may come from state grants, foundation grants and loans, timber revenue or local agency contributions. Local agencies may repay loans with water and hydropower revenues. </p>
<p>Third, a major restoration project may stretch over five to 10 years and involve water agencies, county governments, the Forest Service, nongovernmental organizations, state agencies and the <a href="https://california-ecosystem-climate.solutions">University of California</a>.</p>
<p>Doing a project right involves much more than just cutting trees. From our experience, there are three key ingredients: accurate data for planning restoration treatments; credible methods for projecting and verifying the benefits that these treatments will produce; and incentives to bring parties together for the duration of the project.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Building public support</h2>
<p>Current projects in California have relied heavily on state grants. Going forward, the state will need more funding sources to match the goal in an August 2020 <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/8.12.20-CA-Shared-Stewardship-MOU.pdf">Shared Stewardship agreement</a> in which California and the Forest Service set a target of treating 1 million acres per year for 10 years.</p>
<p>At even $1000 per acre, treating 1 million acres will cost $1 billion per year. This figure does not include repeating treatments as forests regrow, which will be required in many areas to eventually restore a natural fire regime.</p>
<p>California is increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration, but needs to step up this effort considerably. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/10/07/governor-newsom-launches-innovative-strategies-to-use-california-land-to-fight-climate-change-conserve-biodiversity-and-boost-climate-resilience/">Executive Order</a> to use California land to fight climate change, conserve biodiversity and boost climate resilience signals a strong intent, but meeting this multi-billion-dollar challenge will require more partners. We also see an important role for organizations working to educate and engage larger segments of the public through news stories, <a href="https://www.beyondthebrink.global/">films</a>, social media and agency outreach.</p>
<p>A warming climate is intensifying risks to forests that are already stressed by wildfires, drought and pests. Sustaining California’s iconic mountain forests requires acknowledging the multiple values they provide, and including the many groups who benefit from them in finding and implementing solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Bales receives research support from and consults for Blue Forest and for The Nature Conservancy. Both are non-profit conservation organizations implementing forest-restoration projects in California, He also receives research support from state and federal agencies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha Conklin receives research support from state and federal agencies.</span></em></p>Restoring western forests – thinning out small trees and dead wood – is an important strategy for reducing the risk of massive wildfires. But these projects aren’t fast, easy or cheap.Roger Bales, Distinguished Professor of Engineering, University of California, MercedMartha Conklin, Professor of Engineering, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1463172020-09-28T02:48:35Z2020-09-28T02:48:35ZBirthdays, holidays, Christmas without mum or dad: how to support kids with a parent away fighting fires<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359697/original/file-20200923-20-1tclqan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C5184%2C3849&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among the sacrifices made by firefighters, and those who support fire-affected communities, is precious time spent with family. In California, thousands of firefighters and community support workers or volunteers have missed important moments such as birthdays, school events or family gatherings. </p>
<p>In Australia, where bushfire season includes December-January, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1920/Quick_Guides/AustralianBushfires">thousands</a> routinely miss out on Christmas, New Year’s Eve and chunks of school holidays with family because they’re off fighting fires or <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-04/australia-defence-reservists-to-help-in-bushfire-recovery/11840764">helping those affected</a>. Some only go home to sleep before returning to the fire front. Others are deprived of family time for weeks or months.</p>
<p>My research focuses on how to support children with at least one parent who must travel afar for work (such as military families). But the same techniques may apply in households with a firefighter or other fire-affected community support worker in the family.</p>
<h2>How might children respond?</h2>
<p>Children might respond to parents working away for long periods:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-25070-020">emotionally</a> (teariness, whinging, emotional outbursts or withdrawing)</li>
<li><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10591-011-9144-8">socially</a> (clingy behaviour or struggling with routines) </li>
<li><a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/125/1/16.full.pdf">cognitively</a> (skill regressions, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25830802/">delays in development</a>), and </li>
<li><a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1018364.pdf">physically</a> (nightmares, issues with toileting, or sleep and feeding regressions). </li>
</ul>
<p>Children are <a href="http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/parent-resources/separation-anxiety/">never too young</a> to realise a parent is missing. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-support-children-whose-parent-works-away-for-long-periods-125641">How to support children whose parent works away for long periods</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Parents can prepare</h2>
<p>I conducted <a href="https://articlegateway.com/index.php/JMPP/article/view/2928/2783">research</a> with 19 children aged between 2 and 5 who had a parent who worked away at times. I also talked to one of their parents and educators about the children’s and family’s responses, strengths and coping strategies.</p>
<p>Many parents find it useful to explain <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2016.8">why they work away, where they are going, and what they will do</a> using age-appropriate language. </p>
<p>Some found it helpful to <a href="http://artinearlychildhood.org/journals/2018/ARTEC_2018_Research_Journal_1_Article_5_Roger.pdf">mark where they were going on a globe</a> or map, repeating the story each day for a few weeks before leaving. Where possible, homemade sticker calendars marked off the days until the parent returned.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young child photographs a burnt out landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359699/original/file-20200923-17-n2dsi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Develop and practice a narrative simple enough for the child to repeat. For example: ‘Mum is away fighting fires. She will be home after New Year.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pictures can help explain the roles of emergency services, defence personnel, front line workers and volunteers. Discuss how these workers use their skills to save people, forests, animals, farms and buildings. Partner with <a href="https://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/333815/UNE-Newsletter-Volume-3-Issue-22.pdf">children’s educators</a> to find resources to help children understand.</p>
<p>Talk about other jobs where parents work away, and explore some of the <a href="https://ecdefenceprograms.com/">children’s resources available</a>, including those designed for children with a <a href="https://ecdefenceprograms.com/index.php/auslan-keyword-posts/">disability or language delay</a>. Share these, and <a href="http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/media/resources-bushfire-affected-communities/">bushfire resources</a>, with educators. Children’s educators can be a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017706711">great support</a> when parents work away.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/children-need-support-when-a-parents-work-takes-them-away-from-the-family-home-125641">Develop and practice a narrative</a> simple enough for the child to repeat. For example, “Mum is away fighting fires. She will be home after New Year.” This can improve children’s <a href="http://artinearlychildhood.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ARTEC_2019_Research_Journal_1_Article_3_Rogers_Bird_Sims.pdf">confidence</a>.</p>
<h2>Children should be able to talk about their fears</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1049731513517143?journalCode=rswa">Some children fear</a> their parent will be <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fcre.12099">killed or injured when they work away</a>. Parents can and should encourage children to talk openly about their fears. </p>
<p>Showing children pictures of safety precautions and equipment they use might reduce fears. Consider restricting unsupervised use of media to reduce exposure to the news. Telling their educators about children’s fears can be useful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two firefighters face a blaze." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359698/original/file-20200923-22-ktsuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents can and should encourage children to talk openly about fears they have regarding their parents work or service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parents found pets could be a comfort and a conversation topic. Some <a href="http://artinearlychildhood.org/journals/2018/ARTEC_2018_Research_Journal_1_Article_5_Roger.pdf">bought a new pet</a> before they went away, asking for updates and photos (of course, pet ownership is a long term commitment and is not a decision that should be made lightly).</p>
<p>Other parents allowed <a href="https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tandfonline.com%2Fdoi%2Ffull%2F10.1080%2F1350293X.2020.1817236&data=02%7C01%7Ccegan%40une.edu.au%7C4aaa3c03bc79423c0dc608d8585c7721%7C3e104c4f8ef24d1483d8bd7d3b46b8db%7C0%7C0%7C637356501440241201&sdata=iq5b6JLne%2BtJlIUenYlzAaHBXPoX7zJIL4ZiA66PCWE%3D&reserved=0">pets to comfort</a> children at night by letting the pet inside when they were away.</p>
<h2>I’m here, you’re there, but we’re still in touch</h2>
<p>Setting up a joint project before the parent goes away can increase children’s confidence and <a href="https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/jmvfh-2019-0022">agency</a>. Examples include a vegetable garden, flowerpots, worm or mushroom farms, craft projects, dolls house or adventure kingdom using recycled materials. Children can continue the project and send updates and photos.</p>
<p>When children missed their parent, the “at home” parents asked the child to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roses-story/id1439753804?ls=1&mt=8">draw what they were looking forward to</a> doing with the “away” parent when they returned. These were photographed and sent to the parent via messages, emails or post. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27661">Parents set up a basket </a> for these drawings. The “away” parent could then work through the activities on their return.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A parent and child water a garden." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359700/original/file-20200923-14-micudt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Setting up a joint project, such as a garden, before the parent goes away can be helpful.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Providing art and craft materials for children helped them to express feelings. Some young children made faces out of modelling clay to <a href="https://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/172003/soe_newsletterv1.2.pdf">show how they felt</a> when their parent worked away. </p>
<h2>Self-soothing tools</h2>
<p>Other parents of young children used <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017706711">mascots</a>, such as two teddy bears: one for the child and one for the away parent. The child could hug the bear when they wanted to cuddle the parent, and was told the parent would feel the hug (and vice versa). The parent took photos of the bear in different locations, as did the child did during outings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A child and a teddy, both wearing masks, look out a window." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359518/original/file-20200923-14-1ik614p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some parents gave the child a teddy and had a matching one for themself. The child was able to hug the bear when they wanted to cuddle the parent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Children found comfort in video and audio recordings of the parent reading <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/DCO/_Master/documents/Books/Roses-Story.pdf">bedtime stories</a>, including short stories they enjoyed as a child. <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/DCO/_Master/documents/Books/Anthonys-Story.pdf">A small photo album</a> featuring the child and the parent next to the child’s bed also helped. Some parents also allowed children to sit on the “away” parent’s loungechair when they were absent.</p>
<p>Overall, parents found children responded to situations differently, but finding strategies that boosted understanding and maintained connection with the absent parent built resilience.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/value-beyond-money-australias-special-dependence-on-volunteer-firefighters-129881">Value beyond money: Australia's special dependence on volunteer firefighters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marg Rogers works for the University of New England, Australia. Her team receives funding from The Ian Potter Foundation to create two programs for educators and parents of young children from defence force families (<a href="http://www.ecdefenceprograms.com">www.ecdefenceprograms.com</a>). We do not get paid to do the research by the funding body, instead, the funding helps to pay for the costs of the project.</span></em></p>My research focuses on how to support children with a parent who must travel afar for work. Strategies that boost understanding and maintain connection with the absent parent build resilience.Marg Rogers, Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460332020-09-14T14:34:58Z2020-09-14T14:34:58ZCalifornia wildfires: why a gender-reveal party got the blame, but shouldn’t have<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357738/original/file-20200912-20-1qyw8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C336%2C2995%2C1396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/photos/forest-fire-hose-water-wildfire-3694495/">Skeeze/Pixabay </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the time of writing there are <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/">7,718 fires</a> raging across California, 20 people have lost their lives, and nearly 5,000 buildings have been destroyed. The ignition of one of these fires caught the attention of the press, and the internet, more than others.</p>
<p>On September 5, an explosion of coloured smoke revealed the gender of a Californian couple’s soon to be born child, and simultaneously set light to over 10,000 acres of the El Dorado Ranch Park in Yuaipa.</p>
<p>Gender-reveal parties, relatively unheard of just a few years ago, have now become an important rite of passage for expectant parents in the US. Seen by some as an unhelpful reinforcement of binary gender stereotypes, these parties have long been the source of mockery by the internet. Years of one-upmanship have seen ever more extravagant reveals posted to social media – cake cutting, mass dance performances, balloons dropped from planes, and, increasingly, pyrotechnics.</p>
<p>So, when a gender-reveal party started the El Dorado fire, it was bound to draw attention. <a href="https://www.insider.com/gender-reveal-party-memes-california-fires-consequences-2020-9">Memes and spoof articles</a> soon appeared, and the mainstream media latched on to the story. The idea that the fires were started by human stupidity is one we actually find appealing, and almost comforting. But this narrative hides a very uncomfortable truth.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1303138062302576641"}"></div></p>
<h2>The perfect storm</h2>
<p>California is not on fire because of a single gender-reveal party, of course. The El Dorado fire consumed just 10,000 of the 2.3 million acres presently alight. The west coast is ablaze because of a range of climatic changes. California has been baking in record temperatures for weeks, hitting a record 49°C in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/06/weather/california-record-temperature/index.html">early September</a>. </p>
<p>The heat has turned the state into a tinderbox. But it was unusually high humidity, thanks to an ebbing tropical storm in the eastern Pacific Ocean, that struck the match, sending plumes of moisture over California. High moisture and high air temperatures both day and night bred a particular type of storm cloud – one that produces very little rain, but huge amounts of thunder and lightning. August 16 and 17 alone saw more than 10,000 lightning strikes, sparking 376 fires.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1298621954606407681"}"></div></p>
<p>California has long been linked with wildfires, but their size, frequency and number is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/09/why-californias-wildfires-are-going-to-get-worse.html">growing</a>. The ten largest fires in the state since records began in 1932 have occurred since 2000, with the two largest being the 2018 Mendocino Complex fire and this year’s LNU Lightning Complex fire. Scientists warn that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fast-moving-california-wildfires-boosted-by-climate-change/">climate change</a>, by ensuring hotter summers, changing humidity levels and more storms, will result in ever more, and ever larger fires in California.</p>
<h2>Why blame the party?</h2>
<p>In many ways, blaming a single human event makes sense. Historically, the majority of fires in California have been started by them – downed power cables, sparks from a tyre blowout, poor choices like barbecues and this year’s fateful gender-reveal party. As these fires become more common, the severity of them no longer serves as a hook, so the press and the internet look for a human act to draw the reader in. An act of individual stupidity, doing something that is already widely mocked, is the perfect narrative.</p>
<p>But blaming one person, one party, one poor decision or one freak accident avoids the necessary reckoning with collective responsibility. It moves the blame to individuals, giving the most powerful perpetrators of global heating – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change">a roomful</a> of chief executives and their corporate empires – a free ride. It also erodes the sense of urgency that’s vital for tackling climate change. </p>
<p>The wildfires in California are being caused ever more frequently by natural causes like lightning. And where fires are caused by human carelessness, it’s the increasingly dry and scorched conditions resulting from climate change that make them so easy to ignite.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1303100166526980096"}"></div></p>
<p>Smokey Bear is a fire safety mascot who popularised the phrase “Only <em>you</em> can prevent forest fires”. He isn’t all wrong. <em>You can</em> help prevent forest fires, through taking better care when walking in the woods. But the “only you” part of the message needs to be addressed. Reducing the number, frequency and intensity of fires in California will take global action, by governments and corporations, to rapidly scale down the greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change.</p>
<p>Blaming the party is easier. When comprehending the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2020/sep/07/california-wildfires-in-pictures">apocalyptic scenes</a> playing out in the US, it is far more comforting to imagine that they are the fault of a single stupid person, than a sign of worse to come.</p>
<p><em>Imagining Apocalyptic Politics in the Anthropocene, a new book by Doug Specht and Earl Harper will be published by Routledge in 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Doug Specht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s comforting to blame California’s wildfires on human stupidity. But this hides a very uncomfortable truth.Doug Specht, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459652020-09-10T18:01:18Z2020-09-10T18:01:18ZCoping with Western wildfires: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357515/original/file-20200910-19-dp4glc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=60%2C0%2C6720%2C4466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wildfire smoke creates an orange glow over San Francisco, Sept. 9, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-layer-of-smoke-generated-by-the-over-2-dozen-news-photo/1228429349?adppopup=true">Burak Arik/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Intense wildfires are raging in <a href="https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm">California, Oregon and Washington state</a>, spurring mass evacuations and leaving charred towns in their wake. A <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/september-2020-us-climate-outlook-late-season-heat-wave-across">regional heat wave</a> is keeping temperatures high and humidity low, creating difficult conditions for firefighters. These five articles from The Conversation’s archive explain what’s driving Western fires and how they’re affecting residents.</p>
<h2>1. Welcome to the Pyrocene Age</h2>
<p>Many factors have combined to create conditions for today’s epic wildfires, including climate change, land use patterns and decades of fire suppression. </p>
<p>Arizona State University emeritus professor <a href="http://www.stephenpyne.com/bio.htm">Stephen Pyne</a>, a historian of fire, argues that Earth may be “<a href="https://theconversation.com/california-wildfires-signal-the-arrival-of-a-planetary-fire-age-125972">entering a fire age</a> comparable to the ice ages of the Pleistocene, complete with the pyric equivalent of ice sheets, pluvial lakes, periglacial outwash plains, mass extinctions and sea level changes. It’s an epoch in which fire is both prime mover and principal expression.”</p>
<p>This transition reflects how humans interact with the land and how they use fire, Pyne writes. Humans believed that they could contain fire on the land, as they did in factories. Meanwhile, they burned more fossil fuels, adding to combustion sources. Today, Pyne writes, “The climate is unhinged. When flame returns, as it must, it comes as wildfire.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of large fire incidents in the United States." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357519/original/file-20200910-18-1lb3de8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than 100 large fires were burning in 12 Western states on Sept. 10, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fsapps.nwcg.gov/afm/data/lg_fire/lg_fire_nifc_2020-09-10_browse.png">National Interagency Fire Center</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Climate change’s fingerprint</h2>
<p>While climate change isn’t the only driver of Western fires, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ovnjqjMAAAAJ&hl=en">Kevin Trenberth</a>, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, sees its influence clearly. Typically, lightning, power lines or poorly doused campfires ignite these conflagrations – but climate change is making the U.S. west hotter and dryer, and thus more prone to burn. </p>
<p>Water “acts as the air conditioner of the planet,” Trenberth explains. “In the absence of water, the excess heat effects accumulate on land both by drying everything out and wilting plants, and by raising temperatures. In turn, this leads to <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-wildfires-how-do-we-know-if-there-is-a-link-101304">heat waves and increased risk of wildfire</a>.” </p>
<p>Because scientists can estimate how much extra heat climate change is adding to the atmosphere, its role in creating conditions for wildfires is clear, Trenberth argues. Researchers who study climate and fire have observed these trends playing out in the West, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-driving-wildfires-and-not-just-in-california-107240">longer fire seasons and more destructive fires since the 1980s</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1303419860362252288"}"></div></p>
<h2>3. Treating wildfires like earthquakes</h2>
<p>Californians have lived for decades with the risk of earthquakes. Now, in the view of University of California Santa Barbara scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A_0DKxMAAAAJ&hl=en">Max Moritz</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YqRA7csAAAAJ&hl=en">Naomi Tague</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RCP0c0kAAAAJ&hl=en">Sarah Anderson</a>, they need to think about wildfire risk in the same way. </p>
<p>This means taking long-term steps, such as limiting development in the <a href="https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui/">wildland-urban interface</a>, where homes and businesses adjoin fire-prone undeveloped areas; retrofiting homes to make them more fire-resistant; and improving evacuation planning and warming systems. </p>
<p>“Following the roadmap for earthquakes, from seismic planning to earthquake retrofitting to education campaigns, the state can move the response to wildfire <a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfires-are-inevitable-increasing-home-losses-fatalities-and-costs-are-not-101295">from reactive fighting to comprehensive preparedness</a>,” the authors assert.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iYP1QrTNE3Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wildfire damage in a residential neighborhood in Talent, Oregon, Sept. 9, 2020.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. The threat of smoke</h2>
<p>As wildfire smoke turns Western skies orange and red, millions of people face <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-in-wildfire-smoke-and-why-is-it-so-bad-for-your-lungs-144790">serious health risks from inhaling it</a>, even many who are far from active fires. Wood smoke is a complex mixture of gases and large and small particles that can cause eye and throat irritation and lung inflammation. It also can worsen asthma, cardiovascular problems – and possibly even the impacts of COVID-19, warns <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luke_Montrose2">Luke Montrose</a>, assistant professor of community and environmental health at Boise State University.</p>
<p>If you’re downwind from a wildfire, Montrose offers this advice: Pay attention to local air alerts; avoid being outdoors or engaging in strenuous exercise; use a window air conditioner and a portable air purifier to create a clean, cool space; and skip activities that can add to indoor air pollution, such as burning candles or lighting gas stoves. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Satellite image of smoke drifting off the Pacific coast from California and Oregon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357531/original/file-20200910-20-vojb5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thick smoke streams from a line of intense fires in California and Oregon, Sept. 9, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147261/westernfires_tmo_2020253_lrg.jpg">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Pricing wildfire risks</h2>
<p>Property and casualty insurance often covers damage from disasters such as wildfires. But in many parts of California, observes Stanford University’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=C89DjrAAAAAJ&hl=en">Gireesh Shrimali</a>, that coverage has become <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-fire-prone-california-many-residents-cant-afford-wildfire-insurance-119451">unaffordable for thousands of Californians</a>.</p>
<p>As insurers drop policyholders in fire-prone areas, the main alternative is a <a href="https://www.cfpnet.com/">state-backed insurance pool</a> that provides basic coverage at a high price as a last resort. To address this squeeze, Shrimali recommends separating wildfire coverage from general property insurance and requiring all California homeowners to purchase it. He also calls for risk-based pricing, so that owners pay more if they choose to build or buy in fire-prone areas. </p>
<p>“Insurance is not a substitute for fire prevention policies or investments in wildfire response, but it is one necessary tool for managing the state’s serious wildfire risks,” Shrimali writes.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
How climate change and other human actions have combined to create conditions for explosive wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington state.Jennifer Weeks, Senior Environment + Cities Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451702020-08-30T20:01:38Z2020-08-30T20:01:38ZCalifornia is on fire. From across the Pacific, Australians watch on and buckle up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355243/original/file-20200828-20-1d4yypq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2982%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>California is ablaze, again. Currently, the second and third <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/22/905099950/the-worst-is-not-behind-us-california-continues-to-burn">largest fires</a> in the US state’s history are burning at the same time, and are only <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/">partially controlled</a>. Already, seven people have died and 2,144 structures are damaged – and their fire season still has months to run.</p>
<p>The outbreak continues a relentless trend of bigger and more destructive fires in <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/1/1/17">the western US</a>, including California’ <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2018/californias-mendocino-complex-of-fires-now-largest-in-states-history">largest fire</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>For Australians, the spectacle of California burning is deeply concerning. It’s just months since our last fire season, concentrated in a band of eucalyptus forests along the continent’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02306-4">southeast coast</a>. </p>
<p>There are strong parallels between the two disasters: drought, parched landscapes, high temperatures, prolonged heatwaves and dry lightning storms to set it all off. And both Australia and California are particularly vulnerable as climate change makes bushfires worse. So let’s look at the fiery fate we share with those across the Pacific – and how we must all adapt. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Wildlife rescuer saves a koala from a forest fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355246/original/file-20200828-24-1he9zwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia endured its own bushfire disaster just months ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Mariuz/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>We know bushfires are being made worse by human activity and climate change. But, owing to a lack of long-term data and the complex interactions between humans, climate and fire, it’s hard to predict exactly how fires will change – for example how frequent or severe they will be, how long fire seasons will last and how much land will burn.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-0085-3.pdf">research</a> published last week, we describe recent trends in fire activity and examine projections for the near future. From this, it’s clear the global impact of bushfires due to human-induced climate change will intensify.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-field-cameras-melted-in-the-bushfires-when-we-opened-them-the-results-were-startling-139922">Our field cameras melted in the bushfires. When we opened them, the results were startling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Among the areas expected to be worst hit are flammable forests in populated temperate zones, such as Australia’s eastern states and California. </p>
<p>Climate is not the only driving factor here. Human changes to landscapes – such as urban sprawl into flammable forests – are also making fires worse.</p>
<p>The damage is not just environmental, but also economic. Already, Australia’s last bushfire season is likely to be our most expensive natural disaster, costing <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-costs-approaching-100-billion-the-fires-are-australias-costliest-natural-disaster-129433">around A$100 billion</a>. And the California fires in 2017–2018 caused an estimated A$55 billion in structure losses alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scorched homes and vehicles in a mobile home park in California" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355249/original/file-20200828-14-ohtsss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scorched homes and vehicles in a mobile home park in California. The economic toll of bushfires globally is set to worsen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Noah Berger/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The escalating threat demands an urgent rethink of our inadequate and inappropriate fire management strategies. These span land use planning, fuel management, communications, evacuation and firefighting capacity. All are constrained by complex administrative arrangements, limited physical and human resources, and poor budgets. </p>
<p>Climate change also raises the frightening sceptre of a “positive feedback” loop in which climate change exacerbates fire, producing carbon dioxide emissions which worsen climate change further. This vicious cycle threatens to fundamentally alter the Earth system.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nsw-bushfire-inquiry-found-property-loss-is-inevitable-we-must-stop-building-homes-in-such-fire-prone-areas-145028">The NSW bushfire inquiry found property loss is ‘inevitable’. We must stop building homes in such fire-prone areas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What’s more, fire seasons in southern Australia and the western US increasingly overlap. As California burned last week, uncontrolled winter bushfires <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/duranbah-bushfire-burning-along-pacific-highway-near-tweed-heads-nsw-queensland-border/2abfe8a0-4c80-4da8-976d-f257924bd851">ripped through</a> northern New South Wales. Australia <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/california-asks-for-australian-help-to-battle-hundreds-of-fires/12599796">is sending</a> firefighters to California this time around. But as fires increasingly rage in both hemispheres simultaneously, our respective nations will have fewer firefighting resources to share.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 crisis is making these difficult circumstances even more challenging. For example in California, authorities are dealing with both the fires and the pandemic; the state <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/california-asks-for-australian-help-to-battle-hundreds-of-fires/12599796">reportedly has</a> the highest number of infections in the US.</p>
<p>Firefighters must practice social distancing: that means fewer people in each vehicle and no communal eating or sleeping arrangements. And Australian firefighters will be forced into quarantine for two weeks upon their return home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Police car in California drives through burning forest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355245/original/file-20200828-22-1x1q8ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australians look on with sympathy as California burns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Accepting reality</h2>
<p>In this context, <a href="https://www.dpc.nsw.gov.au/publications/categories/nsw-bushfire-inquiry/">recommendations</a> handed down by the NSW bushfire inquiry last week are a landmark in how we <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/1yIcC91Zn7f6oW7OTopt3E?domain=dpc.nsw.gov.au">adapt to bushfires</a>. Central to the report is an avowed acceptance climate change is transforming bushfire management. </p>
<p>The report contains 76 recommendations, all accepted by the NSW government, providing creative licence to rethink how we sustainably co-exist with bushfires. They include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>reforms of arrangements to manage bushfires, such as better coordination between agencies, better shared data and streamlining fuel management programs</p></li>
<li><p>trialling new approaches to reducing fuel loads, fighting fires and managing smoke pollution </p></li>
<li><p>involving Aboriginal people in managing landscapes</p></li>
<li><p>maintaining the safety and mental health of those on the frontline such as fire fighters, first responders and affected citizens</p></li>
<li><p>improving disaster management through improved training and work practices for firefighters, better communication, new technologies and investing in equipment.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The scope and scale of the recommendations underscores the huge task ahead of us.</p>
<p>Importantly, underpinning the recommendations is a clear commitment to analysing which approaches work, and which do not. This accepts our current state of knowledge is partial and imperfect. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Amanda Shields from the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council inspects the plant regrowth after a fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355247/original/file-20200828-24-1rpy225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amanda Shields from the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council inspects the plant regrowth after a fire. Indigenous people should be more involved in fire management.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel CArrett/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our fire-filled futures</h2>
<p>Co-existing with a flammable landscape is a massive and complicated task – a fact California is now being brutally reminded of. Australia can lead the way globally, but to do this requires significant investment in bushfire management to build the necessary tools, techniques and talent.</p>
<p>Climate change is making bushfire seasons longer, more dangerous and socially demanding. Like it or not, we have embarked on the bushfire adaptation journey, and there is no turning back.</p>
<p>The question now is, how far do we go? All Australians must turn their minds to this critical social and political challenge.</p>
<p><a href="https://bushfires2020.netlify.app"><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1103/Explore.gif?1594552012" width="100%"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bowman receives funding to study fire ecology and management from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub, Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC, and the Tasmanian Government Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and the Environment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Bradstock receives funding from the NSW Rural Fire Service and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment via the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the ARC.</span></em></p>California’s bushfire disaster is eerily reminiscent of Australia’s Black Summer. We share the same fiery fate, and must learn to adapt.David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of TasmaniaRoss Bradstock, Professor, Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269922019-11-15T23:25:59Z2019-11-15T23:25:59ZWhat the battle over control of PG&E means for US utility customers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301860/original/file-20191114-26243-1qpj71n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">PG&E is the largest U.S. utility.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a battle raging over the ownership of PG&E Corp., one of the nation’s largest utilities, with cities, hedge fund managers and even customers all in the running.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/business/energy-environment/pge-bankruptcy.html">Growing liabilities</a> linked to its role in several deadly wildfires in California forced the company to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/business/pge-bankruptcy-fires/index.html">file for bankruptcy in January</a>. It hopes to soon reemerge with a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/pg-e-files-plan-to-exit-largest-ever-utility-bankruptcy-in-u-s">stronger balance sheet</a>. The state’s governor has threatened a government takeover if it <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2019-11-01/california-seeks-quick-fix-to-utility-bankruptcy">doesn’t come up with a viable plan</a> that not only keeps the company solvent but also improves safety from wildfire. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a group of creditors have submitted their own plan to take control of the utility. And <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/business/energy-environment/pge-california-mayors.html">dozens of mayors and county leaders</a> are behind an effort to turn PG&E into a customer-owned cooperative, driven by anger over how the company has managed the power grid – including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/business/energy-environment/pge-california-mayors.html">the use of intentional blackouts</a> in recent months to prevent wildfires. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/18/california-pg-e-power-outages-blackouts/4236049002/">Another round of power cuts</a> is likely to add pressure to the embattled utility. </p>
<p>PG&E’s troubles may be unique, but it <a href="https://theconversation.com/many-electric-utilities-are-struggling-will-more-go-bankrupt-113458">isn’t the only U.S. utility facing challenges</a> to a 20th-century business model that’s been buffeted by new technologies and changes in the ways that people consume electricity. Utilities in locations as diverse as <a href="https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2019/10/29/anchorage-chugach-electric-agree-to-terms-on-999-million-sale-of-electric-utility/">Alaska</a>, <a href="https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/could-a-jea-sale-involve-splitting-utilities/77-3c39cf58-3440-4c7d-9b02-88f8d8d9861d">Florida</a>, <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/business/santee-cooper-paying-down-bond-debt-ahead-of-sc-legislative/article_0544f094-f424-11e9-82f7-4b13d46921e8.html">South Carolina</a> and <a href="https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/11/06/el-paso-electric-proposed-sale-has-problems-puc-report-finds/4170577002/">Texas</a> are considering changing their ownership structure.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yxN_35oAAAAJ">director of energy studies</a> at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center, I’ve had the opportunity to <a href="https://www.dupontfund.org/jea-valuation-assessment-for-potential-sale-released/">study the impacts of changes in utility ownership</a> and what they mean for customers. </p>
<p>The possible paths of PG&E offer some clues. </p>
<h2>Cleaning the balance sheet</h2>
<p>The most likely scenario at this point is that PG&E – which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/business/energy-environment/pge-blackout-california.html">serves some 16 million people</a> from the <a href="https://www.pge.com/mybusiness/customerservice/otherrequests/treetrimming/territory/">forests of Northern California</a> to the outskirts of Los Angeles – remains largely the same.</p>
<p>That’s what happened the last time the utility went through bankruptcy, in 2001, as a result of the <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/wec/chron/print.asp">California power crisis</a>. It exited bankruptcy three years later following the approval of a <a href="http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/WORD_PDF/FINAL_DECISION/32684.PDF">settlement agreement</a> with the <a href="https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/">California Public Utilities Commission</a> in which about US$7.2 billion of the costs of the bankruptcy were assigned to the utility’s customers.</p>
<p>So the baseline case for PG&E is that it stays pretty much the same as it was before – with the same ownership and regulatory structure – but with a cleaner balance sheet that resolves its current obligations. </p>
<p>This time around, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/pg-e-files-plan-to-exit-largest-ever-utility-bankruptcy-in-u-s">part of PG&E’s plan</a> would be to raise over US$30 billion from new debt and equity and cap how much it owes victims of wildfires in agreement with the bankruptcy judge and creditors. The state regulator would then decide how much of this debt and equity to pass on to consumers. </p>
<p>The 2001 bankruptcy cost the average customer $1,300 to $1,600. The California legislature is considering absorbing those extra costs, which just means taxpayers would pick up the tab.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301861/original/file-20191114-26202-1r6gfhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Authorities say PG&E equipment was responsible for the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Noah Berger</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Under new management</h2>
<p>Another possibility would be the sale of PG&E to a new private investor – either to an existing utility or to a hedge fund or similar investor not currently involved in the utility business. </p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-11/pg-e-offering-13-5-billion-in-compensation-to-wildfire-victims">group of PG&E creditors</a> led by Pacific Investment Management Co. and Elliott Management Corp. have proposed a competing restructuring plan that would wipe out existing shareholders, take the company private and set up a $12.75 billion fund for wildfire victims. </p>
<p>While this would change the name on the masthead, it wouldn’t change the utility’s regulatory structure at all. Responsibility for oversight regarding <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-the-u-s-bury-its-power-lines-104829">rate setting, capital investment and utility operation standards</a> would still lie with the state regulator.</p>
<p>The potential impact on customers, however, could be significant. If a new owner were to pay more than the net book value of PG&E’s assets, that might be passed on to customers in the form of higher rates in the future. Ultimately, the state regulator would help determine the specific treatment of the so-called acquisition premium. </p>
<h2>Municipal control</h2>
<p>Others are pushing for <a href="https://www.publicpower.org/">more radical changes</a> to PG&E. </p>
<p>In early September, San Francisco, for example, <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/san-francisco-offer-pge">offered $2.5 billion</a> to buy the company’s electricity assets in the city. Last month, PG&E <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pg-e-us-sanfrancisco-assets/pge-turns-down-san-franciscos-2-5-billion-offer-to-buy-assets-idUSKBN1WQ2SO">rejected the offer</a>, saying it undervalued the assets. </p>
<p>In California and other states, cities do have the <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&article=XI">right</a> to take control of the assets of PG&E through eminent domain. But the process can be complex, time-consuming and costly.</p>
<p>For example, when Winter Park, Florida, took control of the local assets of its main power provider in 2005, the city estimated the value of the physical assets at $15.8 million. The eventual purchase price of the system determined by the arbitrator was <a href="https://doee.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddoe/publication/attachments/An%20Analysis%20of%20Municipalization%20and%20Related%20Utility%20Practices.pdf">just over $42 million</a>. In addition, the city incurred legal and technical support costs during the process. The amount of these costs is not known, but the city issued almost $49 million in bonds to cover all of the costs of the acquisition. The process also took several years because the utility fought the city’s plan. </p>
<p>In the case of PG&E, state regulators would have the <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PUC&division=1.&title=&part=1.&chapter=8.&article=">responsibility for determining a fair price</a> the city should pay for the assets. Once approved, responsibility for setting utility rates and conditions for safety and reliability would then lie with the local government or a locally appointed utility board instead of with the state regulator.</p>
<p>The upshot of this is that whether costs go up or down – which can depend – advocates for municipal takeover can at least say there’s local control. </p>
<h2>Customer ownership</h2>
<p>A twist on the city taking control is forming a cooperative in which customers own the utility.</p>
<p>The mayor of San Jose is <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/09/mayors-ambitious-plan-for-pge-fix-would-put-state-on-uncharted-electricity-path/">spearheading an effort to form a cooperative</a> to assume control of PG&E – which, if it happens, would become the largest in the U.S. Under an <a href="https://www.electric.coop/">electric cooperative</a>, the utility functions as a non-profit entity and each member customer has a say in its operation. Rate setting responsibilities lie with a board appointed by the members with any excess revenues returned to the members at the end of each year.</p>
<p>There’s an open question over whether customers are permitted to opt out of ownership – and simply be a paying customer without any capital obligations. Opting out, of course, would mean not having a say in the utility’s operation nor a share of excess revenues. </p>
<h2>Deep frustration</h2>
<p>These proposals, which stem from <a href="https://ktla.com/2019/10/24/californians-are-furious-at-pge-over-power-shutoffs-some-are-taking-their-anger-out-on-employees/">deep frustration</a> with promises for better service made following the 2001 bankruptcy and PG&E’s responses to wildfires, would represent a major change in the status quo for PG&E, which normally answers to shareholders and regulators as any other public utility would. </p>
<p>Yet it’s impotant to note that changing ownership models only affects the flow of money and responsibility, not electricity. Regardless, the utility will continue to provide service for its customers.</p>
<p>Any preference for one model over another depends on where people want the money to flow and where they prefer that responsibility to lie. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the research doesn’t suggest there’s an optimal model. Each can result in lower or higher costs depending on how the utility is run and many other factors. What really matters is what a community values most. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Nov. 15.</em></p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theodore Kury is the Director of Energy Studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center, which is sponsored in part by the Florida electric and gas utilities and the Florida Public Service Commission. In 2018, he was principal investigator on a grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund to study the value of municipal utilities in a changing marketplace. That work informs portions of this piece. However, the Center maintains sole editorial control of this and any other work.</span></em></p>Customers, cities and investors are all eager for a piece of PG&E, but it isn’t the only US utility that may have new owners soon.Theodore J. Kury, Director of Energy Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1262492019-11-06T12:36:02Z2019-11-06T12:36:02ZMaking life-or-death decisions is very hard – here’s how we’ve taught people to do it better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300334/original/file-20191105-88372-q0u0de.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C1751%2C1166&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When faced with a wildfire, responders must act quickly and decisively to save lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/California-Wildfires-Blackout/aca553473f4a4e43a0b14c9dd8fa7711/9/0">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When faced with a rapidly advancing fire threatening a community, it can be hard to know how best to save lives. </p>
<p>Is a rapid evacuation better, or is it safer for residents to stay where they are? The whole situation can change in an instant, and delays and indecision can be fatal. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article236722528.html">wildfires spread across California</a>, a report about a massive fire in London in 2017 can offer useful lessons for emergency managers and residents.</p>
<h2>Inside the Grenfell Tower fire</h2>
<p>On June 14, 2017, a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/#">refrigerator in a London apartment had an electrical malfunction</a> that started a fire. For the first two hours after the fire was reported, officials <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/#">told the apartment building’s residents not to evacuate</a>. Rather, they recommended people stay in their apartments and trust the building’s design to contain the fire to the unit where it started.</p>
<p>The city’s fire officials were faced with two types of potential tragedy: people dying in their apartments or getting injured or killed trying to evacuate. </p>
<p>In hindsight, they <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/">took too long</a> to realize the fire was out of control, and to change their instructions, telling people to get out. Less than four hours after it started, the fire had engulfed the 24-story Grenfell Tower, home to just under 300 people, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/">of whom 72 died</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/28/fires-rage-california-refines-an-important-skill-evacuating/">similar problem has arisen in California wildfires</a> – including in 2018, when <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-paradise-fire-evacuations-20181114-story.html">delays in the order to evacuate the town of Paradise, California</a>, led to the deaths of 56 people. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300335/original/file-20191105-88414-yaq02k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rapidly growing fire at the Grenfell Tower in London challenged city officials’ decision-making skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grenfell_Tower_fire_(wider_view).jpg">Natalie Oxford/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Choosing the ‘least worst’ option</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1J07riAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">scholars</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N2wxtlUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who</a> study human decision-making in potentially fatal circumstances, we’ve learned that many people, even trained military personnel and emergency responders, find it hard to make decisions in extreme situations, such as large fires. </p>
<p>The resulting delay, which we’ve called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2019.1589572">redundant deliberation</a>,” happens when people take too long to make a choice between difficult options.</p>
<p>We’ve found indecision is the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bdm.723">most dangerous aspect</a> of a high-stakes situation. We have also proposed theories about the origins of this delay, and how it can be overcome, in our recent book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/conflict-9780190623449?cc=us&lang=en&">Conflict: How Soldiers Make Impossible Decisions</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-03597-001">Our research</a> has found that redundant deliberation is more likely to occur when there is no standard policy to guide decision-makers, or, as in the Grenfell fire, when the normal practice doesn’t fit the actual circumstances.</p>
<p>Many apartment buildings’ fire plans involve telling residents to stay put, because fireproof walls, floors and ceilings are designed to contain flames to the apartment where they started. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/">That was the plan</a> at the Grenfell Tower. London fire officials stuck to that advice even as the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/grenfell-tower-report-section-section-1000-pages-damning-criticism/">fire spread into dozens of neighboring apartments</a>.</p>
<p>Their error was in relying too much on fixed rules and written policies, rather than understanding how best to protect human life in a rapidly changing fire that defied the expectations those policies relied on. The London fire chiefs’ years of accumulated firefighting experience had not prepared them to handle what happened at the Grenfell Tower. It was simply too rare an event, with much more at stake than in other fires.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300341/original/file-20191105-88403-1h2828v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When soldiers can talk through scenarios, they get better at dealing with unexpected challenges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.army.mil/article/211802/multinational_disaster_response_exercise_wraps_up_in_nepal">Sgt. 1st Class Corey Ray</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Telling grim stories</h2>
<p>Our research has developed a better way to train people to act decisively in urgent situations. Instead of being slowed into indecision by rules and experience, quick-thinking leaders need to be creative, adaptive and imaginative. </p>
<p>We have developed a way to teach people to transcend their past training through a method of guided imagination we call “grim storytelling.” It’s based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2015.07.001">scenario-centered discussions</a> in which the participants create situations (often from their own experiences) for their colleagues to work through, in the military and aviation communities.</p>
<p>In sessions we conducted, we had three groups of four people. Each group developed a scenario that was based on a real situation they had dealt with in the past, but far more complicated and challenging. Each group then presented the others with the scenario and asked them to choose a course of action from several options, all of which looked quite bad. </p>
<p>For example, one group presented a scenario of lone shooters attacking civilians around the city. The event became a hostage situation at a local hospital, then got more complicated when a group of armed civilians arrived, saying they would “storm the hospital” if local police weren’t going to.</p>
<p>The most helpful grim stories are those where the group members coming up with the scenario disagree about what option they would choose, or where circumstances require decision-makers to question the standard existing policy or practice. </p>
<p>Some grim stories even have built-in ambushes, like the hospital standoff, where the scenario looks to be unfolding in one way but something happens to change it completely, and responders must deal with the new event. </p>
<p>We’ve found that as military and law enforcement personnel work through these hypothetical situations, they learn a lot about their own values and those of others. They find opportunities to test different policies and flexible problem-solving approaches. Our method is inexpensive and efficient, too, because people can talk about situations without having to physically create or re-enact them. Even when, as happened with the hospital standoff, participants find themselves unable to decide in time, they can gain a real appreciation for how hard some decisions can be and how easy it can be to fall victim to redundant deliberation.</p>
<p>Grim storytelling is also incredibly flexible. In our training with law enforcement and other agencies, we have conducted grim storytelling exercises that last several hours and involve multiple phases, actors, roles and decision makers. But we have also conducted grim storytelling in short bursts, stripped down to simpler, yet no less horrible, decisions. </p>
<p>Whichever method is used, grim storytelling – a skill informed by storytelling and even <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060391683/story/">creative writing</a> – forces people to think in new and unfamiliar ways that can improve their decision-making in real situations that unfold unexpectedly. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Shortland receives funding from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI), Foundational Science Research Unit, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Alison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Emergency responders and military personnel need to think creatively – even imaginatively – to save lives under pressure. Analyzing the Grenfell Tower Fire in London reveals useful lessons.Laurence Alison, Director of the Centre for Critical and Major Incident Psychology, University of LiverpoolNeil Shortland, Director, Center for Terrorism and Security Studies; Assistant Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1259722019-11-01T13:02:55Z2019-11-01T13:02:55ZCalifornia wildfires signal the arrival of a planetary fire age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299690/original/file-20191031-187898-1si5e64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wind whips embers from a tree burned by a wildfire in Riverside, Calif. Oct. 31, 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/California-Wildfires/54d0f5f1c1f04013a3525faffa56e2e4/41/0">AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Another autumn, more fires, more refugees and incinerated homes. For California, flames have become the colors of fall. </p>
<p>Free-burning fire is the proximate provocation for the havoc, since its ember storms are engulfing landscapes. But in the hands of humans, combustion is also the deeper cause. Modern societies are burning lithic landscapes - once-living biomass now fossilized into coal, gas and oil - which is aggravating the burning of living landscapes. </p>
<p>The influence doesn’t come only through <a href="https://www.firescience.gov/Digest/FSdigest1.pdf">climate change</a>, although that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-wildfires-how-do-we-know-if-there-is-a-link-101304">clearly a factor</a>. The transition to a fossil fuel civilization also affects how people in industrial societies live on the land and what kind of fire practices they adopt. </p>
<p>Even without climate change, a serious fire problem would exist. U.S. land agencies reformed policies to <a href="https://theconversation.com/recreating-forests-of-the-past-isnt-enough-to-fix-our-wildfire-problems-59364">reinstate good fire</a> 40 to 50 years ago, but outside a few locales, it has not been achievable at scale.</p>
<p>What were lithic landscapes have been exhumed and no longer only underlie living ones. In effect, once released, the lithic overlies the living and the two different kinds of burning interact in ways that sometimes compete and sometimes collude. Like the power lines that have sparked so many wildfires, the two fires are crossing, with lethal consequences. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/roLRvN4W2XI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">As of Sept. 9, 24 wildfires were burning in California, none of them contained.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fire as framework</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=LPC7UQyQQhQ">historian of fire</a>, I know that no single factor drives it. Flames synthesize their surroundings. Fire is a driverless car that barrels down the road integrating whatever is around it. </p>
<p>Sometimes it confronts a sharp curve called climate change. Sometimes it’s a tricky intersection where townscape and countryside meet. Sometimes it’s road hazards left from past accidents, like <a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/logging_slash">logging slash</a>, invasive grasses or postburn environments.</p>
<p>Climate change acts as a performance enhancer, and understandably, it claims most of the attention because it’s global and its reach extends beyond flames to oceans, mass extinctions and other knock-on effects. But climate change is not enough by itself to account for the plague of megafires. Climate integrates many factors, and so does fire. Their interplay makes attribution tricky.</p>
<p>Instead, consider fire in all its manifestations as <a href="http://aeon.co/magazine/science/how-our-pact-with-fire-made-us-what-we-are/">the informing narrative</a>. The critical inflection in modern times occurred when humans began to burn fossilized rather than living biomass. That set into motion a “<a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295746180/fire/">pyric transition</a>” that resembles the demographic transition which accompanies industrialization as human populations first expand, then recede. Something similar happens with the population of fires, as new ignition sources and fuels become available while old ones persist. </p>
<p>In the U.S., the transition sparked a <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295975924/fire-in-america/">wave of monster fires</a> that rode the rails of settlement – fires an order of magnitude larger and more lethal than those of recent decades. Land clearing and logging slash fed serial conflagrations, which blew up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the waning decades of the <a href="https://www.eh-resources.org/little-ice-age/">Little Ice Age</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299692/original/file-20191031-187912-1t09ct4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Great Fire of 1910, which killed 78 firefighters in Idaho (shown) and Montana, led to a half-century of forest management focused on fire suppression.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910#/media/File:St_Joe_Idaho_Fire_1910.jpg">Library of Congress/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was a period of flame-catalyzed havoc that inspired state-sponsored conservation and a determination to eliminate free-burning flame. Led by foresters, the belief spread that fire on landscapes could be caged, as it was in furnaces and dynamos. </p>
<p>Eventually, as technological substitution (think of replacing candles with lightbulbs) and active suppression reduced the presence of open flame, the population of fires fell to the point where fire could no longer do the ecological work required. Meanwhile, society reorganized itself around fossil fuels, adapting to the combustion of lithic landscapes and ignoring the fire latent in living ones. </p>
<p>Now the sources overload the sinks: Too much fossil biomass is burned to be absorbed within ancient ecological bounds. Fuels in the living landscape pile up and rearrange themselves. The climate is unhinged. When flame returns, as it must, it comes as wildfire.</p>
<h2>Welcome to the Pyrocene</h2>
<p>Widen the aperture a bit, and we can envision Earth entering a fire age comparable to the ice ages of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Pleistocene-Epoch">Pleistocene</a>, complete with the pyric equivalent of ice sheets, <a href="https://www.lakeshoresup.com/2015/04/15/great-basin-pluvial-lakes-gifts-of-the-ice-age/">pluvial lakes</a>, periglacial <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/outwashplainsandeskers.htm">outwash plains</a>, mass extinctions, and sea level changes. It’s an epoch in which fire is both prime mover and principal expression. </p>
<p>Even climate history has become a subset of fire history. Humanity’s firepower <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-irony-of-the-anthropocene-people-dominate-a-planet-beyond-our-control-64948">underwrites the Anthropocene</a>, which is the outcome not just of human meddling but of a particular kind of meddling through humanity’s species monopoly over fire. </p>
<p>The interaction of these two realms of fire has not been much studied. It’s been a stretch to fully include human fire practices within traditional ecology. But industrial fire, unlike landscape fires, is solely a product of human finagling, and so has stood outside the bounds of ecological science. It’s as though the intellectual sink for understanding can no more hold the new realm of burning than nature can its emissions. </p>
<p>Yet in humanity – the keystone species for fire on Earth – those two arenas of earthly burning, like smoke from separate fires drawn into a single convective column, are merging. Their give and take is reshaping the planet. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ] </p>
<p>In the developed world, industrial combustion arranges agriculture, built environments, peri-urban settings and reserves for wildlands – all the stuff available for landscape fire. Societies even fight landscape fire with the counterforce of industrial fire in the form of pumps, engines, aircraft and vehicles to haul crews. The interaction of the two realms of fire determines not only what gets burned, but also what needs to be burned and isn’t. It changes the road fire drives down. </p>
<p>Add up all the effects, direct and indirect – the areas burning, the areas needing to be burned, the off-site impacts with <a href="https://www.firescience.gov/projects/98-S-01/project/Soil_and_Water.pdf">damaged watersheds</a> and <a href="https://www.firescience.gov/projects/98-S-01/project/Air.pdf">airsheds</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-forests-rebounded-from-yellowstones-epic-1988-fires-and-why-that-could-be-harder-in-the-future-101495">unraveling of biotas</a>, the pervasive power of climate change, rising sea levels, a mass extinction, the disruption of human life and habitats – and you have a pyrogeography that looks eerily like an ice age for fire. You have a Pyrocene. The contours of such an epoch are already becoming visible through the smoke.</p>
<p>If you doubt it, just ask California.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Pyne has received funding from the U.S. Forest Service, Department of the Interior, Joint Fire Science Program, National Science Foundation, and National Humanities Center. This particular project has not received direct funding. Its ideas have come indirectly by working on other projects, some funded.
I'm registered as a political independent. I belong to the Nature Conservancy, Grand Canyon Conservancy, Association for Fire Ecology, International Association for Wildland Fire, and American Society for Environmental History. </span></em></p>The Earth may be entering an era in which natural and human-generated fire together are reshaping the planet.Stephen Pyne, Emeritus Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207312019-10-29T14:21:37Z2019-10-29T14:21:37ZWhat western states can learn from Native American wildfire management strategies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297965/original/file-20191021-56220-1w4wtpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C944%2C536&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aja Conrad, the Karuk Tribe's workforce and internships coordinator, lights a prescribed fire in Orleans, California.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jenny Staats</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For several months in 2019, it seemed wildfires wouldn’t rage across the West as they had in recent years. But then came the dry autumn and California’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fierce-fall-and-winter-winds-help-fuel-california-fires-106985">Santa Ana and Diablo winds</a>, which can drive the spread of wildfires. Utilities are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-23/california-braces-for-more-widespread-power-outages-as-dangerous-winds-pick-up">shutting off power across the state</a> to reduce the risk of damaged equipment or downed trees on wires causing fires.</p>
<p>There’s no lack of proposals for managing wildfires more effectively: California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Newsom-signs-22-wildfire-related-laws-from-14487057.php">signed 22 wildfire-related bills in one day</a>. But what’s missing are perspectives from indigenous communities across North America, who have lived with fire for thousands of years.</p>
<p>In our research on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vp1B7REAAAAJ&hl=en">climate change</a> and <a href="https://envs.uoregon.edu/people/mastersstudents/#Worl">people’s reactions to it</a>, we have worked with the <a href="http://www.karuk.us/">Karuk Tribe</a> in northwestern California and southern Oregon on their plan to manage their land under these evolving conditions. American Indian tribes across the West are working with an increased sense of urgency to manage fire-adapted landscapes in the face of climate change. The Karuk Tribe’s <a href="https://karuktribeclimatechangeprojects.com/climate-adaptation-plan/">climate adaptation plan</a> directs their efforts to do just that.</p>
<p>This work has convinced us that this is an exciting political moment to restore western forests and protect the public from dangerous wildfires – and that tribes are uniquely positioned to <a href="https://www.ijpr.org/post/fighting-fire-fire-students-learn-burn-klamath-river-trex#stream/0">lead the way</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298777/original/file-20191025-173537-4keq6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tanoak acorns (xuntápan) are a staple Native food for many indigenous people and are also vital for numerous wildlife species. Tanoak (xunyêep) is very susceptible to high-intensity fire, but benefits from cultural burning that decreases tree and acorn pests and reduces competitive vegetation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://toolkit.climate.gov/image/2109">Lisa Hillman, Karuk Tribe</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From colonization to fire suppression</h2>
<p>News media coverage of wildfires commonly frames them as “natural disasters” – dangerous elements of the natural world over which humans have little control. The language of climate change, fear of fire and the sense that it has become inevitable can be overwhelming, leaving people with the view that little can be done to manage these events. </p>
<p>But in fact, people aren’t helpless. While fires can be dangerous, they are <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520286832/fire-in-californias-ecosystems">inevitable and necessary in many ecosystems</a>, and humans have long adapted to them. Across North America, indigenous peoples have actively managed forest ecosystems through the use of fire. </p>
<p>Euro-American settlers were struck by the rich biodiversity of California’s forests, woodlands and prairies, but they didn’t understand that indigenous people’s use of fire was responsible for them. Instead, they sought to suppress fires wherever possible. The <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300181364/american-genocide">outright violence</a> of the mission and gold rush periods toward indigenous peoples, followed by the U.S. Forest Service’s fire suppression policies, so thoroughly disrupted historic fire regimes that the effects are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1609775113">visible in tree ring data</a>.</p>
<p>While many view climate change as the major driver of today’s mega-fires, one 2016 study demonstrates how Euro-American colonization caused the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1609775113">largest shifts in fire behaviors</a> in California over the past 400 years. In other words, the genocide of indigenous peoples directly relates to today’s catastrophic burning. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297968/original/file-20191021-56194-1wq92jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wildfire burns in Sylmar, Calif., Oct. 11, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/California-Wildfires-Power-Shutoff/5afda60cce5948b6b3af9380f107a183/36/0">AP Photo/David Swanson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The interplay between humans, fire, plants and animals</h2>
<p>The Karuk people have developed complex systems of <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/15/">indigenous knowledge</a> over at least the last 10,000 years through direct interaction with their environment. Indigenous sciences include traditional ecological knowledge of the interplay among <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0296-6">humans, plants, animals and natural phenomena</a>.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples have long set low-intensity fires to manage eco-cultural resources and <a href="https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/1z40kw515?locale=en">reduce the buildup of fuels</a> – flammable trees, grasses and brush – that cause larger, hotter and more dangerous fires, like the ones that have burned across the West in recent years. Before fire suppression, forests in the West experienced a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.004">mix of low- to high-severity fires</a> for millenia. Large, high-severity fires played an important ecological role, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.004">yet their spread was limited</a> by low-severity fires set by indigenous peoples, much like the “prescribed burns” land management agencies use today. </p>
<p>Karuk use of fire has been central to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.117517">evolution of flora and fauna</a> of the mid-Klamath region of Northern California. Sophisticated Karuk fire practices include using frequent, low-intensity fires to restore grasslands for elk and maintain <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/all/51080">tanoak and black oak acorns</a>. Fires also maintain grasslands that provide quality basketry materials, and provide smoke that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR022964">shades the Klamath River</a>, cooling water temperatures and benefiting fish during the hot late summer months. </p>
<p>As Dr. Frank K. Lake, a Karuk descendant and U.S. Forest Service research ecologist, <a href="https://fireadaptednetwork.org/fire-as-medicine-fire-dependent-cultures/">explains</a>, “the Karuk Tribe, among others, sees fire as medicine, and as such views traditional burning as a human service for ecosystems.” Places where fire has been excluded, he said, “are sick, as are the people who live there, from a tribal perspective. Eventually, those places then get too much fire (i.e., catastrophic wildfire), like an overdose.” </p>
<h2>Fire suppression as colonial violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://nature.berkeley.edu/karuk-collaborative/">Research in partnership</a> with the Karuk Tribe demonstrates how fire suppression and the outlawing of Karuk fire management changes forests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-019-00925-y">from food pantries to food deserts</a>. We understand this exclusion of Karuk management practices as a form of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1474725">colonial ecological violence</a>. </p>
<p>“Without fire the landscape changes dramatically,” Ron Reed, a Karuk dip net fisherman, told us. “The traditional foods we need for a sustainable lifestyle become unavailable. The spiritual connection to the landscape is altered significantly.”</p>
<p>As federal forest researchers Jonathan W. Long and Frank K. Lake have <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss2/art10/">found</a>,
colonization and the suppression of indigenous management caused incredible <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/humjsocrel.36.77">harm to Native peoples</a> and created a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0396-y">social-ecological trap</a>, in which the very practices that enhance ecosystems become more difficult to achieve within present legal and political constraints. The recommendations presented in the Karuk Climate Adaptation Plan understand that socio-ecological solutions are needed to address these traps.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Karuk Department of Natural Resources Director Leaf Hillman explains his belief that fire suppression has failed.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Combining indigenous and western science</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://karuktribeclimatechangeprojects.com/climate-adaptation-plan/">Karuk Climate Adaptation Plan</a> calls for using indigenous burning methods as an adaptation for emergency conditions, such as cooling off streams that have become lethally hot for fish. It includes an entire chapter on using prescribed fire to protect critical electrical infrastructure, as an alternative to power shutoffs. </p>
<p>The plan centers around revitalizing Karuk management and fire science, including use of 23 Karuk cultural indicators across seven habitat management zones. Some of these species, such as salmon and black oak, are commonly referenced in nontribal climate plans. Others, such Pacific giant salamander, Indian potatoes and multiple honeybee species, have received far less attention. </p>
<p>“These species have stories to tell – lessons of how to get back to traditional management,” Bill Tripp, Deputy Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization, Karuk Tribe, and Lead Coordinating Author of the climate plan, told us. </p>
<p>Much of the plan centers on specific strategies for returning fire to areas that have not burned due to fire suppression. It emphasizes the need for collaboration with the community and land management agencies, increasing public awareness, and policy advocacy to get Karuk traditional management and fire back onto the land.</p>
<h2>Burning as restoration</h2>
<p>Federal, state and local government agencies are <a href="https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/documents/reports/phase3/WesternRegionalRiskAnalysisReportNov2012.pdf">increasingly recognizing indigenous burning</a> as an ecosystem component and restoration technique. We believe the crisis of climate change offers land managers an opportunity to remedy inappropriate socio-ecological actions and <a href="https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/documents/reports/2_ReportToCongress03172011.pdf">create successful collaborations</a> to promote collective survival. </p>
<p>We agree with Karuk Natural Resources Director Leaf Hillman’s statement that “We have to reestablish a positive relationship with fire. Fear of fire has gotten us to the place where we need to be afraid of fire today.”</p>
<p><em>Bill Tripp, Deputy Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization at the Karuk Tribe, and a Karuk tribal member, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kari Marie Norgaard has been a consultant for the Karuk Tribe and has received funding from the Karuk Tribe for her role as coordinating author for the Karuk Climate Adaptation Plan. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Worl has been a research assistant for the Karuk Tribe and has received funding from the Karuk Tribe for her role as research assistant for the Karuk Climate Adaptation Plan.</span></em></p>Instead of suppressing wildfire, the Karuk Tribe in the Pacific Northwest is using it as an integral part of its climate change management plan. Federal, state and local agencies are taking note.Kari Marie Norgaard, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of OregonSara Worl, Master's Degree Candidate in Environmental Studies, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1008062019-04-25T10:44:07Z2019-04-25T10:44:07ZPlanned burns can reduce wildfire risks, but expanding use of ‘good fire’ isn’t easy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245408/original/file-20181113-194485-tjr22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A U.S. Forest Service employee using a drop torch during a planned burn in Arizona's Coconino National Forest.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/6XzbhU">USFS/Ian Horvath</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As spring settles in across the United States, western states are already preparing for summer and wildfire season. And although it may seem counter-intuitive, some of the most urgent conversations are about getting more fire onto the landscape.</p>
<p>Winter and spring, before conditions become too hot and dry, are common times for conducting planned and controlled burns designed to reduce wildfire hazard. Fire managers intentionally ignite fires within a predetermined area to burn brush, smaller trees and other plant matter. </p>
<p>Prescribed burns can decrease the potential for some of the large, severe fires that have <a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfires-are-inevitable-increasing-home-losses-fatalities-and-costs-are-not-101295">affected western states</a> in recent years. As scholars of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=a6koi4EAAAAJ&hl=en">U.S. forest policy</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ofIGXmcAAAAJ&hl=en">collaborative environmental management</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2EUZAecAAAAJ&hl=en">social-ecological systems</a>, we see them as a management tool that deserves much wider attention.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Fire managers conduct prescribed burns to improve forest conditions and reduce the threat of future wildfires.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Forests need ‘good fire’</h2>
<p>Forests across much of North America need fire to maintain healthy structures and watershed conditions and support biodiversity. For centuries, Native Americans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/120329">deliberately set fires</a> to facilitate hunting, protect communities and foster plants needed for food and fiber. </p>
<p>But starting around the turn of the 20th century, European Americans began trying to suppress most fires and stopped prescribed burning. The exception was the Southeast, where forest managers and private landowners have consistently used prescribed burns to <a href="https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/su/su_srs054.pdf">clear underbrush and improve wildlife habitat</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/u-s-forest-service-fire-suppression/">Suppressing wildfires</a> allows dead and living plant matter to accumulate. This harms forests by reducing nutrient recycling and overall plant diversity. It also creates <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1584">more uniform landscapes with higher fuel loads</a>, making forests prone to larger and more severe fires. </p>
<p>Today many forested landscapes in western states have a “<a href="https://wildfiretoday.com/2012/02/15/our-fire-deficit/">fire debt</a>.” Humans have prevented normal levels of fire from occurring, and the bill has come due. Increasingly severe weather conditions and longer fire seasons <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-driving-wildfires-and-not-just-in-california-107240">due to climate change</a> are making fire management problems more pressing today than they were just a few decades ago. And the problem <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2289216/20-years-wildfires-will-be-six-times-larger">will only get worse</a>. </p>
<p>Fire science researchers have made a clear case for more burning, particularly in lower elevations and drier forests where fuels have built up. Studies show that reintroducing fire to the landscape, sometimes after thinning (removing some trees), often reduces fire risks <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2016.05.021">more effectively than thinning alone</a>. It also can be the most cost-effective way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.5849/jof.12-021">maintain desired conditions over time</a>.</p>
<p>This winter in Colorado, for example, the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest <a href="https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5676/">conducted a prescribed burn</a> while snow still covered much of the ground. This was part of a broader strategy to increase prescribed fire use and create areas of burned ground that will make future wildland fires less extreme and more feasible to manage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270845/original/file-20190424-121245-1k8ks5i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A prescribed burn in the Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forests, February 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/photos/COARF/2018-01-19-1135-Bighorn-Sheep-Prescribed-Burn/picts/2019_03_05-09.47.43.541-CST.jpeg">USFS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>State and local action heats up</h2>
<p>From Oregon’s municipal watersheds to the Ponderosa pine forests of the Southwest, community-based partners and state and local agencies have been working with the federal government to remove accumulated fuel and <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/accelerating-restoration-update-2015-508-compliant.pdf">reintroduce fire</a> on interconnected public and private forest lands. </p>
<p>California’s legislature has approved using money raised through the <a href="http://resources.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/California-Forest-Carbon-Plan-Final-Draft-for-Public-Release-May-2018.pdf">California carbon market</a> to fund prescribed fire efforts. New Mexico is using the <a href="http://riograndewaterfund.org/">Rio Grande Water Fund</a> – a public/private initiative that supports forest restoration to protect water supplies – to pay for <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1258092/state-should-emulate-forest-protection-fund.html">thinning and prescribed burning</a>, and is analyzing ways to <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/19%20Regular/memorials/house/HM042.pdf">expand use of prescribed fire</a> for <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/explore/newsroom/new-mexico-legislation-protects-water-and-quality-of-life/">forest management</a>.</p>
<p>Oregon is in its first spring burning season with a newly revised <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/odf/fire/pages/burn.aspx">smoke management plan</a> designed to provide more flexibility for prescribed burning. In Washington, the legislature passed a bill in 2016 creating a <a href="http://www.putfiretowork.org/2928">Forest Resiliency Burning Pilot Project</a>, which just published a <a href="https://www.dnr.wa.gov/publications/rp_2018_forestry_resiliency_burning_pilot_program_report.pdf">report</a> identifying ways to expand or continue use of prescribed fire. </p>
<p>At the community level, <a href="http://www.prescribedfire.net/">prescribed fire councils</a> are becoming common across the country, and a <a href="https://fireadaptednetwork.org/">network</a> of <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fire/fac">fire-adapted communities</a> is growing. Nongovernmental organizations are building burn teams to <a href="https://facnm.org/our-projects/all-hands-all-lands-burn-team">address fire backlogs on public and private lands</a>, and <a href="https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/FireLandscapes/HabitatProtectionandRestoration/Training/TrainingExchanges/Pages/fire-training-exchanges.aspx">training people to conduct planned burns</a>. This work is all in an effort to <a href="https://fireadaptednetwork.org/stop-focusing-on-ignitions-and-start-investing-in-a-prescribed-fire-workforce/">build a bigger and more diverse prescribed fire workforce</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270486/original/file-20190423-175548-xdp713.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Briefing before a prescribed fire training exercise for women in northern California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">USFS/Sarah McCaffrey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Barriers to conducting prescribed fire</h2>
<p>In our research on <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/f9090512">forest restoration efforts</a>, we have found that some national policies are supporting larger-scale restoration planning and project work, such as tree thinning. But even where federal land managers and community partners are getting thinning accomplished and agree that burning is a priority, it has been hard to <a href="https://ewp.uoregon.edu/sites/ewp.uoregon.edu/files/WP_81.pdf">get more “good fire” on the ground</a>.</p>
<p>To be sure, prescribed fire has limitations and risks. It will not stop wildfires under the most extreme conditions and is not appropriate in all locations. And on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/120329">rare occasions</a>, planned burns can escape controls, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2013/01/04/lower-north-fork-fire-panel-releases-final-report/">threatening lives and property</a>. But there is broad agreement that they are an important tool for <a href="https://theconversation.com/better-forest-management-wont-end-wildfires-but-it-can-reduce-the-risks-heres-how-107245">supporting forest restoration and fuel mitigation</a>.</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom is that air quality regulations, other environmental policies and <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/41832">public resistance</a> are the main barriers to prescribed fire. But when we interviewed some 60 experts, including land managers, air regulators, state agency partners and representatives from non-government organizations, we found that other factors were <a href="https://ewp.uoregon.edu/sites/ewp.uoregon.edu/files/WP_86.pdf">more significant obstacles</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1059529333218263040"}"></div></p>
<p>As one land manager told us, “The law doesn’t necessarily impede prescribed burning so much as some of the more practical realities on the ground. You don’t have enough money, you don’t have enough people, or there’s too much fire danger” to pull off the burning.</p>
<p>In particular, fire managers said they needed adequate funding, strong government leadership and more people with expertise to conduct these operations. A major challenge is that qualified personnel are increasingly in demand for longer and more severe fire seasons, making them unavailable to help with planned burns when opportunities arise. Going forward, it will be particularly important to provide support for locations where partners and land managers have built agreement about the need for prescribed fire. </p>
<p>Humans have inextricably altered U.S. forests over the last century through fire exclusion, land use change, and now climate change. We cannot undo what has been done or suppress all fires - they are part of the landscape. The question now is where to invest in restoring forest conditions and promoting more resilient landscapes, while reducing risks to communities, ecosystems, wildlife, water and other precious resources. As part of a broader community of scientists and practitioners working on forest and fire management, we see prescribed fire as a valuable tool in that effort.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100806/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Courtney Schultz received funding from the US Forest Service and Joint Fire Science Program to conduct research on forest restoration and prescribed fire. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Moseley receives funding from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Interior Joint Fire Science Program. She is a former member of the USDA Forest Research Advisory Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Huber-Stearns receives funding from the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Department of Interior Joint Fire Science Program. </span></em></p>Decades of wildfire suppression have allowed flammable fuels to pile up in US forests. Scientists and managers say careful use of planned fires can reduce risks of large, out-of-control burns.Courtney Schultz, Associate Professor of Forest and Natural Resource Policy, Colorado State UniversityCassandra Moseley, Sr. Associate Vice President for Research and Research Professor, University of OregonHeidi Huber-Stearns, Assistant Research Professor and Director, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1097732019-02-03T17:55:52Z2019-02-03T17:55:52ZDisasters and disagreements: Climate change collides with Trump’s border wall<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256644/original/file-20190131-75085-1nmc3jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump is seen visiting the California town of Paradise that was devastated by forest fires. Trump has threatened to use funds allocated for disaster relief to pay for his border wall.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent news surrounding climate change and its consequences has been grim lately.</p>
<p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body tasked with providing governments with the most accurate and up-to-date scientific information upon which they can frame their policy-making, released a special report in October 2018. It called for a rapid net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/">by 2030</a>. </p>
<p>This means there are fewer than 12 years remaining for these changes to be accomplished globally. </p>
<p>Compounding these dire warnings are the potential consequences for severe catastrophic events as they unfold in a turbulent global environment, both <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06783-6">physically and politically</a>.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s recent release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment demonstrates just how costly climate change and catastrophic events will be for the United States <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">in the future</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the administration and even President Donald Trump himself deny the existence and effects of climate change, including during increasingly severe events. </p>
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<p>But others are taking the consequences of climate change seriously, including the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), which has been actively increasing <a href="https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/605221/">its resilience</a>. The DoD views climate change as a “threat multiplier” and has been working to integrate adaptation measures into its plans, operations and training both internally and in conjunction with external partners.</p>
<p>Within this context, Trump’s recent government shutdown and the intractable disagreement over the border wall is misguided in the most charitable of terms. </p>
<h2>Funding the wall with disaster relief money</h2>
<p>While the crisis over the shutdown appears to be over, at least <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1088958154791100417">for now</a>, Trump has threatened to fund his border wall by taking <a href="https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2019/01/11/puerto-ricans-seethe-as-trump-considers-raiding-disaster-aid-for-wall/?kw=Puerto%20Ricans%20seethe%20as%20Trump%20considers%20raiding%20disaster%20aid%20for%20wall&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=newsflash&utm_content=20190111&utm_term=pc360">money allocated for disaster relief</a> and reconstruction. This includes $2.4 billion for California in the aftermath of its devastating wildfires and $2.5 billion to assist Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria.</p>
<p>Trump’s rhetoric around the allocation of disaster relief funds, along with other disaster-related subjects, including death tolls, reveals just how easily disasters are politicized. They’re used for political gain almost always at the expense of those most vulnerable.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-and-paper-towels-disputing-disaster-death-tolls-103218">Politics and paper towels: Disputing disaster death tolls</a>
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<p>That’s because politicians make politically expedient choices — in this case over funding a border wall — ahead of those that actually protect the security and safety of citizens in ongoing and future disasters.</p>
<p>Most importantly, Trump’s threats illustrate why our discourse surrounding climate change and catastrophic events matters, and why it needs to change in order to reduce the impact of future disasters.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1083022011574747137"}"></div></p>
<p>Mainstream narratives of disasters present them as isolated events in both space and time, distinct from our everyday relationship with nature, and possessing a definite beginning, middle and end. These narratives generally focus on the physical hazard itself as opposed to the preconditions that actually result in disaster. </p>
<h2>‘Just a temporary crisis’</h2>
<p>When the flood or hurricane or forest fire is over, the thinking goes, our normal relationship with nature resumes until the next crisis occurs.</p>
<p>This framing of disasters, and the policy prescriptions that follow from it, was first identified by Kenneth Hewitt in his <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=DF0VAAAAIAAJ&dq=kenneth+hewitt+1983&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjStKC7oILgAhVs4YMKHZv1AIcQ6AEIKjAA">1983 work</a> <em>Interpretations of Calamity from the Viewpoint of Human Ecology.</em></p>
<p>Hewitt’s observations about this mainstream framing — he called it the “dominant view” of disasters — was pivotal in the field of disaster studies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/At-Risk-Natural-Hazards-Peoples-Vulnerability-and-Disasters-2nd-Edition/Blaikie-Cannon-Davis-Wisner/p/book/9780415252157">Scholars in the field</a>, including Hewitt himself, started to argue for an expansive understanding of disasters that recognized the underlying aspects that determine the vulnerability of a community to specific hazards and risks, whether they’re natural or technological.</p>
<p>Disasters are deeply connected to the economic, political and social factors that make people particularly vulnerable to them. While it’s convenient, for the purposes of media coverage or politicians, to understand them as having definitive beginnings, middles,, and ends, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3763/ehaz.1999.0105">scholars have</a> pointed out that viewing them this way is extremely problematic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256646/original/file-20190131-42594-8kogod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this August 2017 photo, Demetres Fair holds a towel over his daughter, Damouri Fair, as they are rescued following Hurricane Harvey. The impact of disasters are economic, political and social.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump’s threat to raid funds allocated in the aftermath of <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/01/10/trump-administration-eyes-disaster-money-to-fund-border-wall.html">2018’s devastating disasters</a> is part of these narratives. It must be understood as an explicitly political choice that negatively impedes the recovery of those communities for whom the funds were originally allocated. Making this choice would ultimately increase the vulnerability of those communities to future disasters. </p>
<p>Understanding the consequences of Trump’s threats to reallocate funding to his border wall makes the political aspects of disasters more visible, especially when framed by the effects of climate change and its consequences.</p>
<p>Disasters are not isolated and distinct events but rather ongoing processes. A better understanding of the relationship between disasters and their underlying causes <a href="https://www.unisdr.org/who-we-are/what-is-drr">encourages politicians to take steps to reduce vulnerability</a>, both through the better allocation of funds for disaster mitigation, as well as by supporting social and economic development programs for vulnerable populations.</p>
<p>In my own work, I have called for an explicit understanding of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/naturesopolirese.8.1-2.0131?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">disasters as a form of violence</a>, and recent events have helped exemplify the necessity to reframe our understanding of disasters in an intentionally political way.</p>
<p>Trump’s threats to the citizens of California and Puerto Rico over his wall make the plight of the vulnerable visible and the political nature of disasters explicit. By challenging how we perceive and understand disasters, we can change the discussions surrounding them and pressure politicians to move away from making politically expedient choices at the expense of the vulnerable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Korey Pasch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump has threatened to use funds allocated for disaster relief to fund his border wall. It’s time to rethink how we frame disasters to stop politicians from using them for political gain.Korey Pasch, PhD Candidate in Political Science and International Relations, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1086682018-12-16T14:36:20Z2018-12-16T14:36:20ZUsing archaeology to understand the past, present, future of climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250312/original/file-20181212-110253-ly9zr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Firefighter Jose Corona sprays water as flames from the Camp Fire consume a home in Magalia, Calif., on Nov. 9, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Noah Berger)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A photo from the tragic <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4680573/paradise-california-before-after-fire/">“Camp Fire,” the most destructive wildfire in California history</a>, shows a house burned down to its foundation. Such images are difficult to process, particularly with 86 people dead. </p>
<p>The image got me thinking about what archaeological research can tell us about disasters and climate change. As an archaeologist, I seek to answer questions about the choices we make, and the things we own and love.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250310/original/file-20181212-110253-1vggg8w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The remains of a house recently burned in northern California. Centre left are two fire-blackened pots. The owners escaped unscathed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Robert Frizzell)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The blackened clay pots in the image above mean a lot to the owners; they are a reminder of the two years their parents spent in Ethiopia in the 1960s, and the many other family objects that did not survive the fire. </p>
<p>In my field work in the high Andes, I have excavated many burned houses, often with layers of ash and <a href="https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/lab-for-interdisciplinary-research-on-archaeological-ceramics-lirac">broken, burned pots that I study in my laboratory at McMaster University.</a> Although the people I study died long ago, I still wonder about how the inhabitants felt as their houses burned and about the things left behind.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250317/original/file-20181212-110253-psntcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stone foundations of a 1,600-year-old house in the highlands of Bolivia. The mud-brick structure was burned, and several large cooking pots were broken and blackened on the clay-lined floor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(A. Roddick)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the difficulty of studying ordinary but meaningful objects associated with traumatic events, archaeologists have long studied <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/10/16/new-pompeii-graffiti-may-rewrite-history-in-a-major-way/#623db89d5484">the impact of disasters such as tsunamis, large-scale El Niño events and volcanic eruptions</a>. Researchers <a href="http://cdmbuntu.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/upcat/id/1186">have worked to understand</a> large-scale tragedies like <a href="http://amhistory.si.edu/september11/">Sept. 11, 2001</a> and the <a href="https://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/articles/2007-05-03/digging-up-the-present">2003 Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island.</a> </p>
<p>Archaeologists can help with recovery and explore <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Natural-Disasters-and-Cultural-Change/Grattan-Torrence/p/book/9780415589086">how communities can change after disasters</a>. For instance, <a href="https://www.macfound.org/fellows/31/">Shannon Dawdy</a> has explored the effects and after-effects of disaster. Dawdy has studied the recovery in post-Katrina New Orleans to consider the <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.2006.108.4.719">material, political and emotional processes that continue to impact places after the disaster</a>. She notes that the archaeology of the majority African-American Lower 9th Ward is distinct, and reveals power structures in New Orleans, where destroyed homes were left exposed for many months, allowing artifacts to sink into the layers of Earth.</p>
<p>We might similarly consider vulnerable populations in California before and after the fires. Although California is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, the destroyed community of Paradise was considered an <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/16/18098441/paradise-california-wildfire-housing">“oasis in the state’s punishing housing market.”</a> Reports suggest the fires in California <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/us/homeless-california-wildfires-evacuees.html">have produced a new housing crisis.</a></p>
<h2>Archaeology of climate change</h2>
<p>The fires in California were <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/climate-change-california-wildfire/">not caused by climate change alone, but it was an important factor</a>. Archaeologists have been studying climate change for more than 150 years; much of our data is a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2158275">“paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental archive.”</a> Climate disaster can both reveal the past and threaten the past, whether it’s in <a href="https://www.archaeology.org/issues/105-1309/letter-from/1165-glaciers-ice-patches-norway-global-warming">melting glaciers</a>, <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-archeology-exposes-treasures-of-the-dead">wildfires</a> or <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/climate-change-brings-the-uks-hidden-past-to-the-surface/">droughts</a>. </p>
<p>Archaeology in the wake of more recent climate disasters is difficult, and is driving some to develop new archaeological methods and innovative inter-disciplinary techniques. But interpretation of our findings is equally challenging. Although the gradual changes of climate are constant, climate disasters can incur damage over the course of days, or even hours. </p>
<p>How do we relate high-resolution climate proxies — those physical indicators of past conditions — to daily life in the past?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-been-studying-a-glacier-in-peru-for-14-years-and-it-may-reach-the-point-of-no-return-in-the-next-30-106422">We've been studying a glacier in Peru for 14 years – and it may reach the point of no return in the next 30</a>
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<p>In the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/01/010129064113.htm">researchers continue to model South American climate histories.</a> Here the emergence (around 400 AD) and “collapse” (around 1100 AD) of the ancient city of <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/567">Tiwanaku (a UNESCO World Heritage site)</a> overlap with periods of climate change. </p>
<p>Archaeologists have drawn on sediment cores to determine lake levels, ice-core data from the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2013-04-discovery-year-old-rosetta-stone-tropical.html">the Quelccaya Glacier that’s disappearing due to climate change,</a> and a large number of radiocarbon dates from sites in the region to understand the impacts of climate. </p>
<p>Some argue that drought, the salinization of soils and a potato cyst may have undermined the raised field system that the state relied upon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250535/original/file-20181213-178579-pfii2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of the raised field system outside of Tiwanaku. This landscape is currently undergoing rapid environmental change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(A. Roddick)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This landscape also shows the results of <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-06-sacred-lake-locals-tackle-titicaca.html">more recent human choices, including urbanization and pollution</a> and the impacts of human-driven climate change. For instance, the glacial peaks that have long held spiritual significance to the Indigenous Aymara are now bare of snow. </p>
<p>The region has also suffered dangerous droughts, in which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/28/shrinking-glaciers-state-of-emergency-drought-bolivia">the urban and rural poor were particularly vulnerable</a>.</p>
<h2>Archaeology of the future</h2>
<p>Archaeologists consider such ongoing threats. With the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report">UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warning that we have 12 years to avoid dire consequences</a>, archaeologists recognize the importance of communicating their understandings of ancient landscapes and the threats that face particularly vulnerable populations. Archaeologists work in the present to understand the past, but also to speak to future crises.</p>
<p>For instance, archaeologist Ken Sassaman studies how ancient Indigenous peoples on the northern Gulf coast of Florida lived through 5,000 years of climate change. They navigated dramatic sea-level rises and shoreline retreats (at a rate of a football field every five years) by moving their ancestors (in what must have been an emotional event), <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/globalwarming/ancient-floridians-knew-how-to-cope-with-rising-seas-archaeologists-find/2255732">shifting their diets and even signalling climate threats to future inhabitants</a>. </p>
<p>Explicit warnings sent from the past are also seen in the 17th-century “hunger stones” along the Elbe River in the Czech Republic that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641331544/drought-in-central-europe-reveals-cautionary-hunger-stones-in-czech-river">warn of future droughts</a>.</p>
<p>Like people thousands of years ago, archaeologists use their knowledge of the past to warn of future climate crises. For instance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/opinion/climate-change-hurricane-michael.html">Sassaman has met with legislators in Florida, a state that officially denies the reality of human-caused climate change</a>. </p>
<h2>Choosing our future</h2>
<p>An inter-disciplinary team of archaeologists, ecologists, geomorphologists, botanists and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band from Berkeley, Santa Cruz and the San Francisco Estuary Institute shows Indigenous peoples of California have a <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/09/24/fighting-fire-with-fire-a-qa-with-kent-lightfoot/%5D(https://www.archaeology.org/issues/272-1709/letter-from/5826-letter-from-california-fires">long history of landscape burning, often choosing to burn to create and maintain productive grassland/shrubland landscapes</a>. Some of this work is informing policy discussions and <a href="https://www.firescience.gov/projects/10-1-09-3/project/10-1-09-3_JONES_CH_09">novel forms of fire-management</a>. This research shows that the biodiversity, topographies and Indigenous histories of California require local solutions.</p>
<p>Archaeologists have a role to play in the decision-making around how we respond to future climate disasters. In our work, as we consider the relationship between short-term events and long-term processes, we can help navigate our uncertain futures. As the ancient examples from Bolivia and Florida demonstrate, climate doesn’t determine our futures. Our choices have always mattered, and they still do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Roddick receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). </span></em></p>With the dire consequences of climate change looming, archaeologists recognize the importance of communicating their findings on ancient landscapes and the threats that face vulnerable populations.Andrew Roddick, Associate Professor of Anthropology, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072452018-11-20T11:34:40Z2018-11-20T11:34:40ZBetter forest management won’t end wildfires, but it can reduce the risks – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246273/original/file-20181119-76154-12fdqod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump and other federal and state officials tour a mobile home and RV park on Nov. 17, 2018 in the wake of the Camp Fire. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-California-Wildfires/e3c81e2f8b484884a0cee29c4bad2b1b/20/0">Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP, Pool</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump’s recent comments <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/17/668947908/trump-blames-forest-management-again-during-california-visit">blaming forest managers</a> for catastrophic California wildfires have been met with outrage and ridicule from the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/california-wildfires-trump-tweet-malibu-camp-fire-woolsey-hill-ventura-county-a8629801.html">wildland fire</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/us/politics/fact-check-trump-california-fire-tweet.html">forestry community</a>. Not only were these remarks insensitive to the <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Fire-refugees-camp-in-Walmart-parking-lot-amid-13396956.php">humanitarian crisis</a> unfolding in California – they also reflected a muddled understanding of the interactions between wildfire and forest management. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1061168803218948096"}"></div></p>
<p>As scientists who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=a6koi4EAAAAJ&hl=en">forest policy</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ofIGXmcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">community-based collaboration</a>, here is how we understand this relationship. </p>
<h2>Fire is a natural hazard</h2>
<p>In cases like the <a href="http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents/incidentdetails/Index/2277">Camp Fire</a> in Northern California, where <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-californias-wildfires-are-so-destructive-in-5-charts/">low humidity, dry vegetation, hot temperatures and high winds</a> have created extreme fire conditions, there is little that homeowners, forest landowners or land managers can do to affect fire behavior. Fire is a natural hazard, like earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes. It is unique in that it can develop with little warning and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5849/jof.13-012">last for weeks or even months</a>. </p>
<p>Like other natural hazards, wildfire cannot fully be prevented. However, it is not only possible but urgent to prepare for it, and to get people out of harm’s way when conditions are life-threatening.</p>
<p>It is also increasingly clear that climate change is making these kinds of fires more likely by creating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537">longer fire seasons</a> and hotter and drier conditions. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=R2lkEusAAAAJ&hl=en">Toddi Steelman</a>, a prominent fire scientist at Duke University, recently tweeted, “We are only kidding ourselves if we don’t think [a disaster like the Camp Fire] could happen again tomorrow. All the conditions point to <a href="https://twitter.com/EnviroWonk/status/1063459199592460288">more of this in our future</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246276/original/file-20181119-76147-1uxjexu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satellite image of smoke from the Camp and Woolsey fires on Nov. 9, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/camp-fire-rages-in-california">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Preparing for the inevitable</h2>
<p>Despite this reality, there are ways to prepare for fire. During less extreme fire events, actions by homeowners can reduce the risk that their houses will burn down. By clearing brush around homes, changing ventilation systems, keeping roofs and gutters free of leaf litter and moving wood piles, owners can reduce the likelihood that their houses will ignite and create safe spaces for fighters to <a href="http://www.readyforwildfire.org/Defensible-Space/">defend their homes</a>.</p>
<p>Local governments also must continue to improve plans, alert systems and resources for people when it’s time to evacuate. Events in California have shown that time can be extremely limited, and as with other natural disasters, poor and disadvantaged individuals who have limited resources to get to safety <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/climate/wildfires-minorities-risk.html">will often suffer most</a>. More can be done to prepare to evacuate towns and <a href="https://weather.com/news/news/2018-11-15-grand-jury-report-fire-risk-paradise/">get information to people rapidly</a>.</p>
<p>Many also have expressed concern about housing growth in places where homes are in close proximity to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718850115">forestlands that can burn</a> – the area known as the wildland-urban interface. However, many of the most tragic fire events in California, including this year’s fires and those in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/21/us/california-fire-damage-map.html">Napa County in 2017</a>, occurred in <a href="https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/1/90825">urban and suburban areas</a>. Land use planning and improved housing codes, both of which require local initiative, have a role to play in reducing home loss, but a growing number of people will continue to live in areas with significant fire risk in the future.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vL_syp1ZScM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The National Fire Protection Association explains how homeowners can help prevent their houses from igniting during wildfires.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The role of forest management</h2>
<p>Many ecologists say that in some places, forest management – which includes thinning brush and small trees and burning under the right weather conditions – can help <a href="https://doi.org/10.5849/jof.12-021">reduce unwanted effects when wildfires occur</a>. This is especially true at lower elevations and in drier forests, like the <a href="https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/4fri">ponderosa pine forests of the Southwest</a>. </p>
<p>Across the country, forest managers, community-based partners and environmental groups are <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/restoration/">working together</a> to thin trees and increase use of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/120329">prescribed burning</a>, in which managers intentionally ignite fires under less extreme conditions. Although it may seem counterintuitive, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1584">allowing more natural fire to burn</a> under less extreme conditions, instead of suppressing every blaze, also is important.</p>
<p>But thinning and prescribed fire won’t make a difference in all ecosystems, and there are limitations to land management. For example, the <a href="http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents/incidentdetails/Index/2282">Woolsey Fire</a> in Malibu, which now is almost fully contained but has destroyed 1,500 structures and killed three people, is in non-forested shrub lands, where these techniques are unlikely to make a difference. And in high-elevation forests, many scientists say <a href="https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054%5B0661:TIOFFA%5D2.0.CO;2">management activities like thinning are inappropriate</a> because fires in these forests are driven more by weather conditions than fuel loads.</p>
<p>There is also disagreement about the value of thinning, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2016.05.021">particularly if it is not followed by prescribed fire</a>, for changing fire behavior. And efforts to thin and burn in forests may not have any impact on fire behavior under extreme weather conditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246278/original/file-20181119-76137-120wm6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Land managers use prescribed burns to keep flammable fuel loads from building up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.freshfromflorida.com/Divisions-Offices/Florida-Forest-Service/Wildland-Fire/Prescribed-Fire/Anatomy-of-a-Prescribed-Burn">Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Prioritizing the right work</h2>
<p>The United States has vast fire-prone forested ecosystems. Federal and state agencies and private forest owners cannot possibly manage them all for fire, nor should they aim to. In our view, the right approach is to make efforts in targeted locations, with an increased focus on reducing fuels near communities and in other key areas such as <a href="https://www.denverwater.org/education/blog/protecting-forests-and-watersheds-year-round">municipal watersheds</a>.</p>
<p>In our research, we have found that improved policies and partnerships are essential for <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/f9090512">restoring forest conditions</a> and <a href="https://ewp.uoregon.edu/sites/ewp.uoregonedu/files/WP_86.pdf">conducting prescribed fires</a>. Policies that promote collaboration allow local partners to share resources and find agreement about how to tackle complex fire management issues with local support. </p>
<p>It is also important to focus funding investments on priority landscapes. Forest management resources are limited, so it is critical that the federal government, states, counties and community members work together to implement targeted solutions. </p>
<p>Another key point is that most thinning and other fire hazard reduction does not typically yield trees and other forest byproducts with economic value. This <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/10/24/communities-want-trees-thinned-timber-companies-want-contracts-so-whats-the-problem">makes the work expensive</a>. The most valuable timber in the United States typically is not in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/f6124375">places with the highest fire hazard</a>, and more commercial logging is not going to stop fires. <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sanjuan/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD597039">A lot of good work has already been planned</a>, but more funding and capacity will be needed to get it done.</p>
<p>Solutions for reducing wildfire risk are not always intuitive. They vary from one location to another, and conditions are ever-changing. In the face of growing risk and unprecedented conditions, everyone involved in fire management must recognize the inherent complexity of responding to fire, and work together with communities, firefighters and land managers to find answers that are tailored to different places.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Courtney Schultz received funding from the US Forest Service and Joint Fire Science Program to conduct research on forest restoration and prescribed fire. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cassandra Moseley receives funding from the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Interior Joint Fire Science Program, and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. She is a former member of the USDA Forest Research Advisory Council.</span></em></p>Forest management is not a cure-all for wildfires, although it can help reduce the chances of massive burns. Making this happen will require broad collaborative efforts and more money.Courtney Schultz, Associate Professor of Forest and Natural Resource Policy, Colorado State UniversityCassandra Moseley, Sr. Associate Vice President for Research and Research Professor, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1068942018-11-15T14:35:06Z2018-11-15T14:35:06ZWe can’t stop wildfires – we need to relearn how to live with them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245780/original/file-20181115-194506-1y4mkpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5760%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the firing line.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-spreading-flames-canyon-fire-2-735803347?src=YIx2vvF4BPvmghbo5rAPyA-1-1">Aarti Kalyani/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wildfire is an integral part of the Earth system and has been for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/burning-planet-9780198734840?cc=gb&lang=en&">over 400m years</a>. It is also an important and natural part of many of the world’s ecosystems. Indeed, some ecosystems, such as savannas, <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5926/481">would not exist without fire</a> – although others, such as the rainforests, cannot survive with wildfires and so work to maintain a damp climate.</p>
<p>We have evidence of controlled fire from <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/burning-planet-9780198734840?cc=gb&lang=en&">more than 400,000 years ago</a>. But ascertaining the onset of our ability to kindle fire is more difficult. We certainly know it existed 40,000 years ago, but potentially as far back as <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/201501641">400,000 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>Over several thousand years, human populations have used fire to alter landscapes, hunt for food, and for comfort and to prepare food in the home. We have learned some control over fire and also how to respect it. But over the past hundred years or so, there has been a major transition in how we view fire –- what researcher Stephen Pyne has termed the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02595.x">“pyric transition”</a>.</p>
<p>This change, coupled with climate change, is behind the current wildfire crisis engulfing mansions in Hollywood and threatening lives in major towns and cities, not only in California but across the world. Although this problem has been widely [discussed in the scientific literature], many <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150469">lessons remain to be learned</a> by developers and residents living where wildfires are an environmental reality.</p>
<h2>How we lost our connection with fire</h2>
<p>As towns and cities have become larger, fire has been excluded – and if it breaks out at all it is carefully controlled before it can spread. As a result, urban populations have lost their understanding of fire and fire has been demonised. This demonisation has become worse as urban dwellers blur the boundary between human habitation and wilderness, expanding into remote areas and, in many cases, into flammable vegetation.</p>
<p>We now face a situation in which all fires get rapidly extinguished when to let them burn may sometimes be the best option. This is because extinguishing fires in flammable landscapes can produce a build up of fuel, meaning future fires may be larger and more intense. </p>
<p>We need to learn about the biology of fire responses, which is key to recognising fire-dependent versus fire-sensitive plant species and ecosystems which exclude or cultivate fire. This is central to devising appropriate fire management systems and to deciding where we build.</p>
<p>The twin problems of flammable non-native invasive plants and climate change are posing a bigger challenge to fire policy across the world. Flammable plants are spreading into vegetation which is unable to recover from wildfires, such as in the Saguaro cactus (<em>Carnegiea gigantea</em>) areas of the southern US. As a result, this ecosystem may cease to exist <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iMOnAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT11&ots=i_QksH5PKT&sig=1rdST_LDPPi5mDQnk4f6DGgOy3Y&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">within only 20-30 years</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245782/original/file-20181115-172710-12acdan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saguaro cactuses – climate change and invasive plants are causing wildfires where they have no natural history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/saguaro-four-peaks-near-phoenix-arizona-547265233?src=4O7GpKSeMBgXrtX5NpvO5g-1-8">Anton Foltin/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many cases –- even in areas that burn regularly –- non-native plants can cause significant problems, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.12046?">such as with cheatgrass</a> (<em>Bromus tectorum</em>) in North America and <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150345">Eucalyptus plantations in Portugal</a>. Many of the non-native grasses were originally introduced into new areas as feed for cattle but have spread uncontrollably before it was appreciated that they were particularly flammable and could alter fire regimes.</p>
<p>The relationship of fire with the evolution of plants and animals is a long one and many have <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iMOnAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT11&ots=i_QksH5PKT&sig=1rdST_LDPPi5mDQnk4f6DGgOy3Y&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">adapted to a fiery landscape</a>.
It has even been suggested that <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iMOnAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT11&dq=.+2014+Fire+on+earth:+an+introduction.+Chichester,+UK:+John+Wiley+%26+Sons.&ots=i_QksH6LLT&sig=qLdsr3w_wauxvaKyWonSZUIbOwo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=.%202014%20Fire%20on%20earth%3A%20an%20introduction.%20Chichester%2C%20UK%3A%20John%20Wiley%20%26%20Sons.&f=false">some plants encourage fire</a>, by being more flammable but also by taking advantage of fire when it occurs by rapidly expanding in to the vacant space.</p>
<p>Where wildfire is a normal part of the landscape, such as in the western US, earlier spring snow melt and a longer dry – and hence, fire – season thanks to climate change have combined with the spread of invasive grasses and people building in this flammable landscape to produce <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150178">more frequent and larger fires</a>. Fire cannot be excluded from these landscapes and we must <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150469">learn how to live in fiery environments</a>.</p>
<h2>Beyond fighting fires</h2>
<p>We need to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/2/130/2468686">plan more carefully</a>, not only regarding building materials, firebreaks and transport infrastructure, but also in how to maintain safe habitation in flammable landscapes. Attempts are being made to <a href="https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/News-and-media/Press-Room/News-releases/2012/Firewise-Communities-Program-launches-new-complimentary-online-toolkit">create fire-wise communities</a>, but clearly we have some way to go and time is not on our side.</p>
<p>Even in the UK, <a href="https://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/publications.nsf/DocsByUnique/FBC1C1319E2CC68E80257EBB0046FB01">we face considerable challenges</a> with the changing climate. Surrey is the most wooded county in England with a large population and built environment. A small heathland fire could easily turn in to a much more significant crown fire, <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150341">threatening people and property</a>. In such places, we need to plan for fire even if fire is not yet an everyday occurrence.</p>
<p><a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150345">Above all, we need to rethink fire </a>. It has always been with us and will be on Earth when we are all long gone. We need to learn lessons from more than 400m years of fire on Earth if we are going to cope with fire in the future. We may kid ourselves that we can control fire, but wildfire is an ancient force that will easily escape our attempts to tame it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Scott has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Natural Environment Research Council, the Royal Society and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>We need to learn to coexist with wildfires the way many ecosystems do. We won’t protect lives in the long term by trying to stamp the fires out.Andrew Scott, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1009922018-08-08T20:49:32Z2018-08-08T20:49:32ZFighting historic wildfires amid bad ideas and no funding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230961/original/file-20180807-191041-7s9nz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A firefighter runs while trying to save a home near Lakeport, Calif. on July 31, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Noah Berger, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortly after my book “<a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Firestorm-Wildfire-Will-Shape-Future/dp/1610918185">Firestorm, How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future</a>” was published in late 2017, I received a flurry of invitations to speak about the challenges of dealing with fires that are burning bigger, hotter, more often — and in increasingly unpredictable ways. </p>
<p>The invitations came from all over, from Los Angeles to Whitehorse in the Yukon and from Campbell River on Vancouver Island, to Portland, Me. </p>
<p>I had serious doubts that anyone in Whitehorse would come out to hear me speak on a Saturday night in the dead of winter when it was close to -30 C. </p>
<p>It turned out to be standing room only. </p>
<p>The invite came from a group of concerned citizens, business leaders and the Yukon Science Institute. The attendees included homeowners, firefighters, emergency response personnel and <a href="http://www.legassembly.gov.yk.ca/members/streicker.html">Yukon cabinet minister John Streicker</a>, who is responsible for the wildfire management division. </p>
<p>The discussion that followed my talk was heated at times, but it led to an open and frank conversation on how this boreal forest community, and others like it, might deal with wildfires like the one that engulfed Fort McMurray, Alta., in 2016 and those that are burning big in British Columbia this summer.</p>
<h2>Investing in the future</h2>
<p>More and more Canadian communities are signing up for the very sensible <a href="https://www.firesmartcanada.ca">Fire Smart program</a>, which promotes a variety of preventative measures such as forest thinning and the use of fire-resistant building materials to reduce the impact of fire. </p>
<p>Vulnerable towns like Nelson, B.C., are on the right track in developing evacuation plans and encouraging people <a href="https://www.nelson.ca/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=146">to keep enough food and water on hand to sustain them for 72 hours</a>. First Nations communities in B.C. are working with scientists like <a href="https://pwias.ubc.ca/profile/lori-daniels">Lori Daniels</a> to make their communities and forest-management zones more resilient. </p>
<p>But there are also a lot of poorly thought-out proposals being made.</p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.fitzhugh.ca/parks-fire-protest-postponed/">residents of Jasper are pressuring Parks Canada</a> to clear-cut the forests around town to form a fire break to protect it. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230962/original/file-20180807-1652-13j35nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A wildfire burns on a mountain behind a home in Cache Creek, B.C. in the early morning hours of July 8, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
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<p>Across North America, the <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/does-a-fire-ravaged-forest-need-human-help-to-recover">logging industry</a> is lobbying governments to salvage the healthy trees and the partially burned ones that remain in a burned-out area. The rationale in this case is that a dead or dying forest has little value other than boosting a local economy.</p>
<p>There is a significant role for the timber industry in managing wildfire in the future. But a growing number of studies show that clear-cutting a burned-out forest is not the answer.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-wildfires-could-radically-change-forests-and-your-life-81158">How wildfires could radically change forests — and your life</a>
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<p>Fire is a natural process that makes forests more resilient to drought, disease and future fires. And it’s good for wildlife.</p>
<p>Woodpeckers, nighthawks and many species of owls thrive in burned-out areas. Elk and moose feed on the aspen shoots that rise up quickly after a fire. Grizzly bears and black bears benefit from the roots and berries that do well when a fire exposes the forest floor to sun and rain. Rivers and lakes tend to heat up in nasty ways when there are no trees to shade them and the cold-water fish they nurture.</p>
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<span class="caption">A deer stands behind a fence as as the River Fire tears through Lakeport, Calif., on July 31, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Noah Berger</span></span>
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<p>There is also tendency to think that <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Wildfires-have-changed-The-technology-to-fight-13131369.php">the best way of dealing with fire is to pour more money into traditional firefighting resources</a>. When I spoke at the University of California, Los Angeles in April, many people in the audience called for more water bombers and irrigation systems. </p>
<p>While this helps, it’s not the whole answer. The only thing that is going to stop a big wind-driven fire that typically blows in from the east is the Pacific Ocean, Ralph M. Terrazas, the fire chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, said during the question-and-answer session that followed.</p>
<h2>Modern firefighting for modern wildfires</h2>
<p>What firefighters like Terrazas and others need are new or improved tools such as unmanned aircraft, better fire-risk maps, real-time warning systems, smoke projections for active wildfires and computer models that predict where the next fire might strike.</p>
<p>This is being done by several scientists in Canada, including Mike Flannigan at the University of Alberta, David Martell at the University of Toronto and research scientists at the Canadian Forest Service. </p>
<p>The ranks of these researchers, however, are small, and the funding for wildfire science in Canada and the United States is miserly compared to the generous amounts that are allotted to disaster recovery. In 2016, for example, the federal government provided approximately <a href="https://www.fin.gc.ca/n17/17-007-eng.asp">$300 million to Alberta to help Fort McMurray rebuild</a>. More came from the province and Red Cross donations, which the federal government matched. All told, more than $600 million was spent fighting the fire. </p>
<p>This knowledge deficit and the shortage of new tried-and-true strategies are what is leading decision-makers and the public astray when it comes adapting to and responding to the new wildfire paradigm that is unfolding in our forests.</p>
<h2>Building a national wildfire strategy</h2>
<p>The fact that people want better wildfire management is a good thing. </p>
<p>What’s needed is a national wildfire strategy such as the one proposed by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers several years ago. Many of <a href="https://www.ccfm.org/english/coreproducts-cwfs.asp">the best recommendations made in a report</a> commissioned by the council haven’t yet been implemented, including the need to invest in wildfire science.</p>
<p>What’s needed is funding agencies such as the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council to step in and identify wildfire as a priority issue for researchers.</p>
<p>What’s needed is for the FireSmart program to be accelerated with more funding from the provinces and territories.</p>
<p>What’s needed is for Parks Canada to invest more in prescribed burning and forest management</p>
<p>And finally, what’s needed is for the federal government to restore funding for the Canadian Forest Service to at least 1990s levels, when it employed 2,200 people. CFS employs about 700 people now, and only about a dozen of those are wildfire scientists. </p>
<p>How can we expect to make progress on preventing catastrophic wildfires when we have a hotter and drier boreal forest than we had 30 years ago, and fewer fire scientists working to protect it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Struzik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada’s boreal region faces bigger, hotter and more frequent wildfires that are increasingly unpredictable, but it lacks an investment in fire science that could help keep communities safe.Edward Struzik, Fellow, Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.