Granted that those Los Angeles wildfires that have indiscriminately devastated tens of thousands of resident homes and lives entirely independent of political affiliations, key causes leading to these tragedies are nonetheless rooted in prevalent partisan policies and priorities.
Rather than blame human influence on climate change, let’s begin by observing some hard facts regarding ways policy and demographic developments — in combination with misguided and destructive environmental programs — have increased the prevalence and worsened consequences of these occurrences.
First, looking back at average seasonal and annual Los Angeles County temperatures over the past 10 years shows no warming trend that would explain current or previous major wildfire events.
Reviewing average August temperatures, for example, records show the warmest years, in order, were: 2018 (78.3 F), 2015 (77.1F), 2020 (76.7F), and 2015 (77.1F), with coldest occurring in 2016 (73.6F), and 2021 (74.4F).
Most recent August temperature records from 2022-2024 were in the middle (ranging between 75.2F-75.5F).
The warmest average December temperatures occurred in 2023 (62.0F), 2017 (61.0F), and 2020 (60.0F), with the coldest in 2021 (54.5F), 2022 (57.5F), 2018 (58.6F), and 2019 (59.4F).
Early average annual Los Angeles temperatures tended to be warmest over the past decade: 2015 (68.3F), 2017 (68.2F), and 2014 (68.1F), with the coldest occurring more recently, 2023 (65.2F), 2024 (65.4F), 2021 (65.6F), and 2022 (65.9F).
Nor is there any apparent correlation of Los Angeles County wildfires with draughts over the past decade.
In fact, the highest net rainfall average inches tend to be most recent, with wettest: 2022-23 (+12.13), 2023-24 (+10.22), 2018-19 (+4.95), and 2016-17 (+4.34), with lowest (dryest) net amounts in 2017-18 (-8.12), 2020-21 (-6.99), 2014-15 (-4.54), and 2015-16 (-2.58).
Without disputing horrific and doubtless historically catastrophic damage of the recent multiple Los Angeles wildfires, it is also unwarranted to view them as increasingly prevalent weather-caused events.
Reviewing the past decade of California history, 2018 was as previously noted an only slightly warmer and wetter than average, but particularly destructive year.
A Nov. 9, 2018 fire in the town of Paradise in Northern California's Butte County was the deadliest wildfire in California's history, killing 85 people, scorching more than 150,000 acres, and destroying nearly 19,000 buildings.
The fire started due to a faulty Pacific Gas and Electric power line that failed during strong winds and ignited dry vegetation.
Another November fire that year in Woolsey burned through Ventura and Los Angeles counties, scorching 96,949 acres, destroying 1,643 structures and killing three people.
An August 2020 fire following a drying heat wave burned over a million acres and destroyed more than 900 structures in Mendocino, Lake, Tehama, Colusa, Glenn, Trinity and Shasta counties, lasting 161 days before it was completely contained.
A Dixie Fire in relatively warm and dry July 2021 burned parts of Butte, Lassen, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties and lasted 104 days covering a total of 963,309 acres — about 1,500 square miles — the equivalent of about three times the land area of the city of Los Angeles.
According to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, nearly one out of five wildfires between 2016 and 2020 were sparked by power lines attached to poles downed by high winds or in swinging contact with growths of leafy tree branches.
People don’t change the climate or weather, but they do influence forest fire risks and casualties. California has had a dry, warm climate since the last Ice Age ended, along with Santa Ana winds that occasionally blow with hurricane intensity.
Nevertheless, citizens and government politicians they elect do impact fire causes and mitigation efforts.
Residential populations, along with power lines and household fire sources have rapidly spread into forested areas.
Poor federal, state and local forest management has resulted in unnatural tree and shrub density … there are now more dead trees in many federal forests than live ones, causing a growing stockpile of wildfire fuels.
The federal government, through the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service owns about 19 million acres of the total 33 million of California forestlands (about 57%).
Whereas timber companies own an estimated 14% of woodlands, access for forest management and wildfire abatement has been severely handicapped by regulations that have cut back on removal of dead trees for fire breaks and roads used by preservation-conscious lumber harvesting businesses.
California has presented bureaucratic obstacles that have discouraged controlled burns to reduce dead trees and brush by forest managers, often requiring years to have specific proposals approved.
State and municipal mismanagement of water necessary to supply fire hydrants contributed to terrible property losses in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods.
Blame Los Angeles for not building and properly maintaining essential reservoir storage capacity, causing emergency supplies to rapidly tap out along with failure to maintain its sprawling 7,337 miles of average 60-year-old water pipe infrastructure not equipped for modern demands.
Also blame environmental lobbies for regulations causing much of the Sierra Nevada snowpack — one of the state’s largest natural reservoirs — to get flushed out to the Pacific Ocean rather than stored for dry years in order to protect Delta Smelt fish populations, also limiting farmers to receive only half of their allocation this past year despite two wet winters.
Yes, but please don’t blame climate change that has been scapegoated for everything imaginable which began long before humans introduced smokestacks and SUVs.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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