In 1998, author and activist Mike Davis published a book, The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. (I had reviewed one of his preceding brilliant analyses of the geography, ecology and politics of LA, City of Quartz, last spring here, which I mention because it gives you a short overview of the issues he was concerned with and how he approached them.) The new book included profound analyses of the danger, handling and, yes, politics of wildfires with an emphasis on Malibu.
20 years later, a Malibu fire started on November 8 and burned nearly 97,000 acres, destroying over 1,600 structures and resulting in three fatalities. More than 295,000 residents were evacuated and an estimated $6 billion in damages incurred. The folks at Longreads.com used the occasion to publish an excerpt of Davis’ book describing the history of fires at the Malibu coast, by consensus deemed the wildfire capital of North America, and a postscript he added in 2018.
Sunrise colors accentuated by smog from wildfires.
I was sent a link to the excerpt given that this week saw another Malibu fire erupt, the Franklin Fire, which seems to be less likely to develop into a monster fire like last month’s Mountain fire in Ventura County, or the earlier, massive Thomas and Woolsey fires, which exploded with disastrous winds that pushed flames for miles and grounded firefighting aircraft. Saved by luck only – the direction and strength of winds for once in favor of the fire fighters.
My own brush with fire on a California hillside this year still sits in my bones and occasionally keeps me up at night. Reading Davis’ chapter on the politics of California wildfires – the reasons why they occur more strongly and frequently, why they harm populations in inequitable ways, and why no-one considers stopping the rebuilding of houses and mansions on fire-prone hills – and even expanding further onto the wilderness – helped to focus my head on the issues, rather than give in to my soul that shudders at the memories. What he wrote in 1998 is more relevant than ever, a quarter century later.
One of the core issues lies with our approach to fire. Fire prevention tactics like nurturing large areas of chaparral and forest into old age, have actually created conditions for stronger fires, once they ignite. Horticultural fire-breaks near towns, like citrus groves and agricultural land have disappeared due to water issues or the need for more land for construction. And we insist that we have to focus on fire handling: ever new regulations specify flame retardant building materials and brush clearing, in essence “fire proofing” human habitat. More than half of new California housing has been built in fire hazard zones since 1993, with more than 11 million Californians, roughly a quarter of the state’s population, living in high-risk wildfire areas known as the wildland-urban interface.
Karen Chapple, an urban planning professor and director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Community Innovation suggests that rather than focussing on specific [wildfire] mitigation measures such as hardening homes, prescribed burns, fuel breaks, we should revise land-use planning, creating more sustainable settlement patterns around the state. (Ref.) This is particularly urgent in light of all the insurance companies now refusing to insure for damage or loss due to fire, given how costs have skyrocketed with more frequent fires. You could lose everything if you (re)build in fire-prone regions.
I very much encourage you to read the 15 minute excerpt of Davis’ book, it is grippingly written as well as informative, and might provide insights for all of us who are exposed to future potential catastrophes, given that climate change has upped the ante for fires now spreading into previously less likely areas, followed by landslides and flooding. Dare I add that the historian’s prescience, evidenced in historical unfolding of his predictions, likely extends to what now lies in wait? Here is a summary of another of his books:
“Davis’s 2005 book, The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu, argues that a combination of poor government planning and a consolidation of resources in the hands of profit-obsessed pharmaceutical companies has left the world—and especially its poorest populations—dangerously vulnerable to pandemics. (The book was widely praised for its foresight during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and it was expanded and republished that year as The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues of Capitalism.)”
What can we do, in an era when this morning’s news included the announcement that R.F.Kennedy’s advisor had earlier asked the F.D.A. to revoke approval of the Polio and Hepatitis B vaccines? Never mind the development of pandemic vaccines…. If RFK gets approved to be the new health secretary, he can intervene in the F.D.A. petition as well as approval processes. I refuse to say “we are doomed.” But we should seriously think about what can be done, because we very well might be – particularly our grandchildren – if this insanity rules the day.
In the meantime, here are some photographs from Southern California with glimpses of the ecology that burns like tinder.
And Piazzolla’s musical take on hot summers.
