Forget a one-and-done solution
Action needed on wildfires, not legal battles or excuses
Text messages at 3:30 a.m. never bring good news, and the one that woke me Nov. 9 was no exception.
Before I went to sleep on the East Coast that night, I was aware of the wildfire bearing down on Paradise, where my parents, brother and family reside. At the time, I was preparing for a speech at a disaster resilience conference for the following day and naturally scanned the news for more information. I learned that the mildly named “Camp Fire” had swallowed the town of Paradise.
I have spent my career working to understand and ease the effects of the disrupted lives, displaced families and financial losses that Mother Nature tows in her wake. I have seen how it looks when a lifetime of memories is hauled to the curb after a flood, hurricane or wildfire. I understand the trauma and have grieved the losses with strangers. But nothing prepares you for the scarring moment of hearing your mother’s piercing words, “Our home is gone. Where do we start?”
Where, indeed?
While the Camp Fire was one of the hottest, fastest, most violent wildfires in the history of California, it is part of rise in frequency in wildfires in the West. No state in the United States is spared from wildfires. Florida experiences wildfires on a three- to five-year cycle. In 2016, we saw lives and homes lost in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and last year, 47,000 acres were scorched in North Carolina. Yet the scale and intensity of the fires is unprecedented, and no natural cure is in the cards. The recent National Climate Assessment asserts that over the next 30 years, the areas burned by wildfire could increase by six-fold.
Forget any notion of a oneand-done solution to the scourge of wildfire. Consistently funded and executed forestry management to thin woodlands, clear underbrush and destroy nonnative species, along with customized wildland vegetation strategies in areas surrounded by chaparral and shrub land are state and federal activities that require policymakers, local leaders and voters to act.
More capacity to fight wildfires should complement these activities, along with homeowner and business loan programs to support improved resilience. It’s not just the vast American landscape that is burning, but also the homes, schools, businesses and natural resources of the American people.
Home and property owners and renters also must lean in. Preparedness can dramatically improve our odds. Policymakers and homeowners must wake up and overcome the ignorance so often revealed in statements like: I cannot do anything about it, I cannot afford it, it is too difficult, it will lose me votes.
The debates, legal battles, and resulting inertia must end. An “all of the above” strategy is necessary.
Even through my mother’s tears, we agreed that our family would rebound, that the ashes would not last, and they are merely the residue of our family’s experience — a family that is still here to build again.