Thanks, Rebecca. Your LA Times links are examples of why I'm not canceling my subscription despite the owner.
Earlier this year I met the mayors of Lind, WA, fire started by a spark from a harvester, and Malden, branch hit a power line, both with a hot, dry, east wind. Raking would not have helped.
Raking would not have helped. My heart goes out to them. I agree about the LA Times: with it, and the Washington Post, I'm hanging on for the good reporting that survives. I may revisit that in the future, but for now, there are still people at both places doing really important work.
Wonderful post, Rebecca. Thanks for diving into the torrent of false narratives to bring some clarity to it all. One missing ingredient is the land itself. Prior to colonization, when the Tongva people tended the land, it was lush, with vast marshes, meadows and numerous oak forests. Beside cutting down the forests and covering the land in concrete, LA is notorious for water engineering that channelizes the water off the land out to the sea. There was likely a small water cycle there that provided hydration during the long dry summers typical of Mediterranean climates. The question is: can it be brought back?
Thanks for speaking truth to a bunch of nonsense. I grew up in Los Angeles, and encountered regular, periodic fires since the chaparral has a fire-based ecology. The shrubby vegetation can withstand most fires since the roots aren't damaged and the plants can grow back. I remember some of the big fires while I was growing up, like the 1961 Bel Air fire. Los Angeles should rigorously police any housing construction that is close to the predominant, fire-prone vegetation, but people like to build on the hillsides for the view.
Great piece, Rebecca! However, our rapidly heating surface/land air is driving increased evaporation and desertification, so the LA fires are partially the result of climate collapse. Also, any fool can see that huge closely situated single family dwellings are prone to wildfire spread, especially in areas of periodic high dry winds. So, my fav mantra applies here also: too many humans using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including global heating and desertification. LA proper is being spared by its flat situation and out of the wind channels, not encroaching on the natural environment as much as the surrounding suburbs, the products of suburban sprawl housing a total of 20M. I once owned a beautiful 28rm mansion in Muskegon, MI, built in 1911 by a bank president on a lot made-up of 4 lots and built of fire brick with a clay tile roof, because a massive fire in the late 19th century along this "millionaires' row" of wooden Victorian mansions was not to be repeated for the bank president. Have a blessed day/evening and know that you are not alone. Gregg
Thanks for this. It is such an important point you make: that we've known how to mostly fire-proof our homes for decades (centuries?). At least that's one problem that ought to be easy to solve.
Rebecca, we can’t predict where always count on you to bring facts and clear analysis to the subject. The way you debunk the lies is so helpful. Scrub-not-forest is such a no-brainer! And Rob’s comment about indigenous land management that retains water during the dry season. We have much to relearn and all the finger-pointing and blame gaming is just sending us backwards.
I was living in Canberra Australia back in 2003 when we had one of these massive firestorms that attacked the city from various points. The ignorance that was evident back then is the same we see now. These destructive fires create their own weather. The winds are ferocious. The whole situation is terrifying. We as people cannot possibly do a thing to stop it.
2003 was the first time we’d seen such extremes but it wasn’t the last. As you’ve noted, we need to learn to live with these conditions and change our structures and where we choose to live. Some areas will always be undefendable.
(Thanks too to all the amazing firefighters who share the load around the world. Our Aussies head over and help you, your Americans fly here to help us. It’s really appreciated. But oh so traumatic for all involved.)
There are other reasons 'climate change' has entered the discussion of these fires. LA's fire season has always been at the end of the summer--until the first rains start in November-December. We have had no meaningful rain since May, after two extremely wet winters. (Extremes).
These Santa Ana Winds were not the typical East-West reverse of the usual on-shore westerly winds.These winds came from the North/East. Most of Altadena is not hillside or 'indefensible' canyon land. It is a standard urban grid of single family homes on slight slope or flat surface, from 50-100 years old and these winds were extreme--beyond any I have witnessed in 75 years living in the area. LA gets wildfires, fueled by Santa Ana Winds--these fires were out of the ordinary.
I have lived in the same home for 45 years and never been evacuated until this fire. The destruction and loss of life are extreme. LA Times coverage has been disgusting, best coverage from LAist.com (local NPR radio Station)
Leslie, I deeply hope you and yours are safe. So much has been lost. We are stunned, watching from afar, wishing we could help somehow. We went through something similar up here in my part of Oregon in 2020 and the destruction is so horrific during, and long after. My heart is with you. And I appreciate you bringing some nuance to the discussion around wind direction and timing and how those were influenced by climate change. Sending love.
Also, if you happen to have any suggestions for us who are not in the area but want to help out, if you are able to share them, I can send to my lists.
Great leveller of information, Rebecca. Thank you.
At some point (not now), it would be great to circle back to the 'climate change caused ....' discussion again, because it did, and will do so more in the future.
We, writers and authors on the left, are getting ourselves uneccesatily tangled up in this false argument (did it, or did it not etc) and we trip over ourselves trying to reach for academic levels of accuracy in general readership content. I think we need to own it—yes, climate change is bearing now on us NOW—and be comfortable to say that as an obvious fact, so we can better lean in to the urgent and grossly under served need for adaptation, be it building design, local water catchment (Australia could teach LA a lot about this ... but the US rarely looks beyond its borders for wisdom), household level preparation ... whatever.
My point is, this clusterfuck is happening now, not in the distant 2°C future and we need to embrace the language that can help people; that can help ecosystems we care about. I say this, not from some abstracted idea, but from a position of wildfire survival (Jan 2020, Australia's Black Summer wildfires).
When I was going through my darkest moment I felt utterly abandoned by society, but especially the climate change and environment movement who wanted to downplay the role climate change in the Black Summer wildfires because it 'robbed people of hope'. 'The ecosytem will recover. People will recover', they said, over and over. 'Send money tobthe survors. That's all you need to do.'. As a survivor, standing in the ashes of my home and my life, that was the most brutally silencing slap in the face. One I am still reeling from (obviously... as I watch myself aggressively bash this comment out on my phone!!!). Five years on, I have not 'recovered', and nor has the ecosystem of my home. The scars of that wildfire have been etched into the landscape like no other fire in living memory or documented history.
We've got to do better than say wildfire has always be [here ... insert California, or Australia, or Brazil ...]. Yes, it has, but now we have supercharged conditions that make that wildfire unnatural compared to our historical experience, and we need to adapt to that, with speed.
I will join the chorus of praise dear Rebecca. Your article is exceptional and will join the history of this lost time and the lost cities, peoples and concerns of that antique era. What will stand out is the strangeness of those times that were mixed with genius and folly, enormous capacity and puzzling inabilities to use those capacities. People confronted tragedies over and again- things like mass shootings, pollution events, and destructive fires. There would be consternation, anger, vows of never again, protests, legislation Then things would quiet down. The ant hill, stirred with a stick would become quiet again, and the cycle would continue on and on- a bad infinite. Such were the ways of that era, and it passed and with it, all the artifacts of that age. The planet changed and changed again as it spun around its sun, and life went on, with even the ants forgotten. Ozymandias in Deep Time. We have no choice but to trust in human nature but human nature is untrustworthy
Thanks, Rebecca. Your LA Times links are examples of why I'm not canceling my subscription despite the owner.
Earlier this year I met the mayors of Lind, WA, fire started by a spark from a harvester, and Malden, branch hit a power line, both with a hot, dry, east wind. Raking would not have helped.
Raking would not have helped. My heart goes out to them. I agree about the LA Times: with it, and the Washington Post, I'm hanging on for the good reporting that survives. I may revisit that in the future, but for now, there are still people at both places doing really important work.
Wonderful post, Rebecca. Thanks for diving into the torrent of false narratives to bring some clarity to it all. One missing ingredient is the land itself. Prior to colonization, when the Tongva people tended the land, it was lush, with vast marshes, meadows and numerous oak forests. Beside cutting down the forests and covering the land in concrete, LA is notorious for water engineering that channelizes the water off the land out to the sea. There was likely a small water cycle there that provided hydration during the long dry summers typical of Mediterranean climates. The question is: can it be brought back?
Rob - this is such a good point. Thank you. And a piece from Didi Pershouse that may address this just popped into my inbox! I’m going to read it now.
Yeah, me too! I'm in the middle of "Elemental" now, but Didi's interview is on deck.
I hope you enjoy Elemental. I think you will really resonate with Maya Khosla, if you weren't already aware of her work. :)
Thanks for speaking truth to a bunch of nonsense. I grew up in Los Angeles, and encountered regular, periodic fires since the chaparral has a fire-based ecology. The shrubby vegetation can withstand most fires since the roots aren't damaged and the plants can grow back. I remember some of the big fires while I was growing up, like the 1961 Bel Air fire. Los Angeles should rigorously police any housing construction that is close to the predominant, fire-prone vegetation, but people like to build on the hillsides for the view.
Hear, hear. I wish you were in charge of residential zoning out there. So many future lives could be saved.
Great piece, Rebecca! However, our rapidly heating surface/land air is driving increased evaporation and desertification, so the LA fires are partially the result of climate collapse. Also, any fool can see that huge closely situated single family dwellings are prone to wildfire spread, especially in areas of periodic high dry winds. So, my fav mantra applies here also: too many humans using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including global heating and desertification. LA proper is being spared by its flat situation and out of the wind channels, not encroaching on the natural environment as much as the surrounding suburbs, the products of suburban sprawl housing a total of 20M. I once owned a beautiful 28rm mansion in Muskegon, MI, built in 1911 by a bank president on a lot made-up of 4 lots and built of fire brick with a clay tile roof, because a massive fire in the late 19th century along this "millionaires' row" of wooden Victorian mansions was not to be repeated for the bank president. Have a blessed day/evening and know that you are not alone. Gregg
Thanks for this. It is such an important point you make: that we've known how to mostly fire-proof our homes for decades (centuries?). At least that's one problem that ought to be easy to solve.
This is SUCH a good post, Rebecca! Thanks so much!
Btw, I just posted a piece about the history of LA pumping water down from Owens Valley and the effects it had and continues to have there:
https://kollibri.substack.com/p/california-water-and-settler-colonialism
We need clear eyed and factual reporting like this. Thank you.
You got it, Ian. I'll do my best. Thank you.
Rebecca, we can’t predict where always count on you to bring facts and clear analysis to the subject. The way you debunk the lies is so helpful. Scrub-not-forest is such a no-brainer! And Rob’s comment about indigenous land management that retains water during the dry season. We have much to relearn and all the finger-pointing and blame gaming is just sending us backwards.
I wish everyone would read this! Thank you for spelling everything out for us.
Thank you for this, I have felt exhausted by the people using this moment to blame and accuse and do nothing helpful.
I was living in Canberra Australia back in 2003 when we had one of these massive firestorms that attacked the city from various points. The ignorance that was evident back then is the same we see now. These destructive fires create their own weather. The winds are ferocious. The whole situation is terrifying. We as people cannot possibly do a thing to stop it.
2003 was the first time we’d seen such extremes but it wasn’t the last. As you’ve noted, we need to learn to live with these conditions and change our structures and where we choose to live. Some areas will always be undefendable.
(Thanks too to all the amazing firefighters who share the load around the world. Our Aussies head over and help you, your Americans fly here to help us. It’s really appreciated. But oh so traumatic for all involved.)
Wishing you all the best. So scary.
There are other reasons 'climate change' has entered the discussion of these fires. LA's fire season has always been at the end of the summer--until the first rains start in November-December. We have had no meaningful rain since May, after two extremely wet winters. (Extremes).
These Santa Ana Winds were not the typical East-West reverse of the usual on-shore westerly winds.These winds came from the North/East. Most of Altadena is not hillside or 'indefensible' canyon land. It is a standard urban grid of single family homes on slight slope or flat surface, from 50-100 years old and these winds were extreme--beyond any I have witnessed in 75 years living in the area. LA gets wildfires, fueled by Santa Ana Winds--these fires were out of the ordinary.
I have lived in the same home for 45 years and never been evacuated until this fire. The destruction and loss of life are extreme. LA Times coverage has been disgusting, best coverage from LAist.com (local NPR radio Station)
Leslie, I deeply hope you and yours are safe. So much has been lost. We are stunned, watching from afar, wishing we could help somehow. We went through something similar up here in my part of Oregon in 2020 and the destruction is so horrific during, and long after. My heart is with you. And I appreciate you bringing some nuance to the discussion around wind direction and timing and how those were influenced by climate change. Sending love.
Also, if you happen to have any suggestions for us who are not in the area but want to help out, if you are able to share them, I can send to my lists.
Great leveller of information, Rebecca. Thank you.
At some point (not now), it would be great to circle back to the 'climate change caused ....' discussion again, because it did, and will do so more in the future.
We, writers and authors on the left, are getting ourselves uneccesatily tangled up in this false argument (did it, or did it not etc) and we trip over ourselves trying to reach for academic levels of accuracy in general readership content. I think we need to own it—yes, climate change is bearing now on us NOW—and be comfortable to say that as an obvious fact, so we can better lean in to the urgent and grossly under served need for adaptation, be it building design, local water catchment (Australia could teach LA a lot about this ... but the US rarely looks beyond its borders for wisdom), household level preparation ... whatever.
My point is, this clusterfuck is happening now, not in the distant 2°C future and we need to embrace the language that can help people; that can help ecosystems we care about. I say this, not from some abstracted idea, but from a position of wildfire survival (Jan 2020, Australia's Black Summer wildfires).
When I was going through my darkest moment I felt utterly abandoned by society, but especially the climate change and environment movement who wanted to downplay the role climate change in the Black Summer wildfires because it 'robbed people of hope'. 'The ecosytem will recover. People will recover', they said, over and over. 'Send money tobthe survors. That's all you need to do.'. As a survivor, standing in the ashes of my home and my life, that was the most brutally silencing slap in the face. One I am still reeling from (obviously... as I watch myself aggressively bash this comment out on my phone!!!). Five years on, I have not 'recovered', and nor has the ecosystem of my home. The scars of that wildfire have been etched into the landscape like no other fire in living memory or documented history.
We've got to do better than say wildfire has always be [here ... insert California, or Australia, or Brazil ...]. Yes, it has, but now we have supercharged conditions that make that wildfire unnatural compared to our historical experience, and we need to adapt to that, with speed.
I'll stop raving now ....
Good testimony from experience Margi, the 2°C future may come sooner than we anticipate.
I will join the chorus of praise dear Rebecca. Your article is exceptional and will join the history of this lost time and the lost cities, peoples and concerns of that antique era. What will stand out is the strangeness of those times that were mixed with genius and folly, enormous capacity and puzzling inabilities to use those capacities. People confronted tragedies over and again- things like mass shootings, pollution events, and destructive fires. There would be consternation, anger, vows of never again, protests, legislation Then things would quiet down. The ant hill, stirred with a stick would become quiet again, and the cycle would continue on and on- a bad infinite. Such were the ways of that era, and it passed and with it, all the artifacts of that age. The planet changed and changed again as it spun around its sun, and life went on, with even the ants forgotten. Ozymandias in Deep Time. We have no choice but to trust in human nature but human nature is untrustworthy