Climate Change and Wildfires

This month we’ve set another record in California, one we never wanted to reach. According to California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection – CAL FIRE– since the beginning of the year until the time I penned this editorial, California wildfires have burned over 3.2 million acres (as we go to print, the fires rage and those numbers are increasing). For scale, this number is an astounding 26 times greater than the amount of land burned in 2019 during the very same time period. These ferocious fires have already claimed dozens of lives and destroyed over 4,200 structures, most of which are homes. The 2018 wildfire season also broke records with a total of 1.8 million acres burned. These three years give a sense of the magnitude of the problem and also that the situation is getting drastically worse each year.

Why are we seeing this dramatic and alarming uptick of severe wildfires? The short answer is our climate crisis. Yes, there have been mistakes with forest management practices going back for generations, but those missteps are amplified because changes in climate magnify them exponentially. The increased severity and length of wildfire seasons have been attributed to the climate change impacts of reduced humidity and precipitation, coupled with increased temperatures. According to the Fourth Climate Change Assessment, California is one of the most “climate-challenged” regions of North America and must actively plan and implement strategies to prepare for and adapt to extreme events and shifts in previously “normal” averages. In addition, 140 million trees have died from our current five-year drought, increasing the severity of wildfire in certain portions of the state.

We have to take our climate crisis much more seriously. The particulate-filled air we are all breathing right now is direct evidence of our present climate disaster and portends the ongoing challenges we will face if we do not make serious investments to fight global warming.

In addition to taking bold action on climate change, state, federal and local governments must embrace important fire prevention strategies and make large investments to make the built and natural environment more resilient to wildfire. As the chair of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, and the representative of a district that largely lies in a very high fire severity zone, I have been urging the state to take action to reduce our community’s vulnerability to wildfire and combat the climate crisis at its core. Only this will reduce the amount of smoke in the air and the devastation these high intensity wildfires cause. If the state and federal government had spent as much on fire prevention as they did on fire suppression in the last 10 years, we would not be in such a dire a position.

There are two steps the governor could take right now to help give our firefighters and communities more tools to reduce wildfire risk, and those are signing my bills AB 3074 and AB 3164.

AB 3074 will protect Californians living in high fire hazard areas by modernizing defensible space protections through the creation of a third defensible space zone called an ember-resistant zone. Defensible space is a crucial tool for protecting structures by giving firefighters a safe space to work and fight advancing fire. What most people don’t realize is that it is floating embers, not advancing walls of flame, which are responsible for the majority of wildland fire home ignitions. So if you don’t give those embers anything to ignite within five feet of your house, you have a much better chance of your home surviving a fire.

The importance of this five-foot zone has been validated in multiple lab tests. Numerous fire science experts, including scientists within the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, a former state fire marshal, a former director of CAL FIRE, and the National Fire Protection Association, have all advocated for the creation of this crucial zone as an effective way to protect structures. Right now, there is nothing in the California Fire Code that would inform homeowners, landscapers and developers about the importance of this zone nor is there any indication of the danger given to property owners during CAL FIRE and local fire departments’ defensible space inspections.

AB 3164 will develop a wildland-urban interface wildfire risk model to empower local communities to know and reduce their wildfire risk. This will offer an opportunity for California to demonstrate innovation in wildfire risk reduction. Local governments participating in the risk model will be able to provide communities with current parcel level analysis and could facilitate mobile app development for both defensible space inspectors and residents. Easy-to-use tools can give Californians new insight into their risk and ways to reduce it through defensible space, community fuel reduction, risk reduction buffers and home hardening.   

Experts estimate that climate change has lengthened our fire season by 75 days.  Unfortunately, this means that California could have many more wildfires to come this year. Clearly, the problem is so severe that we need to begin, right now, to do everything we can to keep our communities safe.

I promise to keep working on these issues every day. In the meantime, I would love your input on how you believe we can keep our communities safe from wildfires and the steps our state can take to tackle every aspect of these crises. As always, please reach out to me with any comments, questions, or concerns through my District Office at (818) 558-3043 or Assemblymember.Friedman@Assembly.ca.gov.

Laura Friedman represents Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Atwater Village, East Hollywood, Franklin Hills, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, and Silver Lake. 

  laura friedman