A firefighter’s advice

For 37 years, I was a firefighter. The worst fires in our history are occurring now.

Wildland-urban interface fires don’t just burn forests. They destroy lives, infrastructure, businesses, and homes. The arguments about forest fires and increased timberland management fall short. They primarily burn the oak, woodland and chaparral on our urban fringes, and leave disastrous socio-economic impacts.

Conversations on this issue are occurring within silos. Firefighters talk to firefighters, scientists to scientists, advocates to people of like mind. We are like a group of people standing on railroad tracks about to be hit by a train, arguing about whether the train carries freight or passengers and who’s the engineer, while some of us deny it exists at all. California needs to convene fire agencies, land use planners, foresters, fire protection engineers, land owners, developers, utilities, insurers, policymakers, scientists, and other stakeholders and take a holistic look at this problem. With billions spent for firefighting, minimal state and federal funding is allocated for engagement or researching our path forward. The proposed federal budget cuts even that.

We need a holistic systems-based approach to this problem, ideally at a university or lab, that will help us get off the tracks. There is no time to spare.