The Burn Convention

 

Our land is blanketed in snow and ice. Airline schedules are disrupted. Thousands of flights cancelled. Blizzards abound. Way beyond normal freezing parameters. People have been stuck in their cars. Dozens of weather-related deaths plague the nation. Where it isn’t snowing, cold and freezing rain deposit their load. Wildfires seem a distant memory. Climate change-deniers feel that chill and wonder what idiot scientists could possibly have conjured the notion of global warming.

Ah, but there’s the catch; it is indeed “warmer” that is causing this freezing flow. Those polar bears adrift on solitary ice flows must know. It is that warmer Arctic air that is melting their world, leaving them to fatal homelessness, that is pushing colder air southward across Canada into the United States, shivering below. But that increased wetness is a harbinger of the kind of warming that simply becomes too hot to handle in summer and autumn months ahead. The Western states are watching as the worst wildfire zone expands.

It's hard to believe the approaching “water wars,” the immediate need to address reallocating the Colorado River, to address the massive reduction in aquifers and ground waters from over consumption and overuse, mostly from agricultural needs. There’s just so much snow. How could that be? But like it or not, that seemingly never-ending drought in Western and now Midwestern states – really aridification or desertification – is also a continuing reality for fragile Western (and some Eastern) grasslands and desiccated forests.

What is particularly startling is that it’s not just the forests that are at risk… but, as this new reality suggests for California alone, “For the first time, more than half of California’s rural and unincorporated communities could soon be classified as ‘very high’ fire hazard severity zones, according to a proposed map from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“Officials unveiled the new map [above] — which ranks the likelihood of certain areas to experience wildfire as ‘very high,’ ‘high’ or ‘moderate’ — this month [December] and are taking public comments through February. If approved, nearly 17 million acres will fall under the worst ranking from the Office of the State Fire Marshal, a 14.6% increase since the map was last updated in 2007.

“The change is largely a reflection of the state’s worsening fire activity, said Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire’s deputy director of community wildfire preparedness and mitigation. That includes larger, faster and more frequent blazes, many of which are being fueled by a buildup of vegetation and California’s warming, drying climate.

“‘That increase really is reflective of what our firefighters have been experiencing over the last several years — more severe wildfires in areas that maybe historically, or decades ago, didn’t have the same susceptibility to wildfires as they do today,’ Berlant said. ‘While the results of the map aren’t necessarily surprising, they really are reflective of a changing climate and an increasing severity of wildfires.’

“The proposed map covers about 31 million acres that are categorized as the ‘state responsibility area,’ or the area for which the state is responsible for preventing and suppressing wildfires. The SRA is composed primarily of rural and unincorporated areas and represents about a third of California’s land, Berlant said. It does not include federally managed areas, such as those overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, or cities and large urban areas managed by local governments. Such urban areas will be folded into a second round of map updates next year…

“Cal Fire said the map could help guide residents’ decisions about where to live and local governments’ decisions about where to build. It will not have direct implications for homeowners insurance, the agency said, although many residents in recent years have reported skyrocketing rates related to worsening fires.

“‘While insurance companies use similar methodologies to calculate risk as they price their insurance offerings to consumers, insurance risk models also incorporate many factors beyond this process, and many of these factors can change more frequently than those that Cal Fire includes in its hazard mapping,’ the agency said in a news release.

“Insurance Department spokesman Michael Soller said that California this year became the first state in the nation to require insurance premium discounts for owners of homes and businesses that are made safer from wildfires. The new rules mandate that insurance companies reward consumers who take mitigation actions under the state’s Safer From Wildfires framework, which includes a list of actions that home and businesses owners can take to better protect themselves from fires…

“‘Really one of the biggest uses is to give people information, whether they’re deciding where to move, or where to build, or where to put local resources into fire breaks and things like that,’ he said. ‘We’re on record in terms of continuing to support update mapping. It’s a benefit for the public.’” Hayley Smith and Sean Greene writing for the December 27th Los Angeles Times. The story tracks from Washington State to New Mexico, from Colorado to Idaho… and beyond. Do we let people rebuild in fire zones? Do we deploy firefighters to save homes that should never have been built where they stand? And why can’t Americans understand or accept that direct relationship between climate change and natural disasters that are both inevitable and intensifying? Farther east, hurricanes, coastal flooding, flooding, fierce tornadoes and searing heat… are equally terrifying and accelerating. Why are we so willing to pay for disasters but so loath to prevent them?

I’m Peter Dekom, and what do those Americans facing devastating losses say to their fellow citizens who continue to refuse to accept the obvious and immutable root cause?