Fire Hazards
For those who live in California and even those who do not live in California, you may know about the numerous fires that occur. I decided that since this is an important topic to be discussed, we will delve into what factors have the potential to lead to such natural disasters.
The Three Elements
Just as anything else, there must be certain elements present. The three elements that must be present for a wildfire to start is fuel, oxygen, and a heat source. Natural wildfires (as classified by the EPA), can be ignited during low precipitation, dry weather, and droughts. This allows for the now dry vegetation to become the perfect fuel for wildfires once lightning strikes. However, this isn’t the only reason why wildfires occur. There also has to be an ample amount of wind to spread the embers to create a big wildfire.
Wild Winds
Since winds too play a crucial role in the birth of a wildfire, I would like to go more deep into this topic. During the spring and fall seasons, Diablo winds reach the San Francisco Bay Area and travel down the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range into the Great Central Valley from the northern coast ranges. During this journey, these winds warm up as much as 20 degrees Celsius through compressional heating and thus losing its original humidity, increasing the chances of triggering a wildfire. Not only that, but El Niño can influence the climate and rainfall over California.
The Statistics (Part I)
However, despite how much mother nature seems to be involved in the birth of wildfires, we cannot forget that these are normal occurrences that occurred many decades if not centuries. Then how come wildfires have only recently become an issue? According to the Earth.org, 85%-90% of wildfires are caused by human activities mainly through the providing of heat sources needed to ignite the fires with external factors (i.e. climate change with California’s natural dry climate) only increasing the chances of these disasters occurring.
The Statistics (Part II)
Due to the effects that climate change brings (e.g. warmer temperatures, drier seasons, drought), the conditions needed to create a wildfire are more easily met which also means that it increases the severity of the wildfire itself once it starts. This is evidently seen through the fact that more than half of the 20 largest fires in California’s history has all taken place in the last 4 and a half years. Even though a 1C increase in the average Californian temperature does not sound like a lot, scientists project that an average of 1C temperature increase every year would increase the median burned area by as much as 600% in certain types of forests with other models suggesting that the amount of land burned by wildfires could increase as much as 30% by 2060 when in comparison to 2011 levels.
Potential Treatments
Just like anything else, treatments can be made to help lessen the potential effects. Although this sounds counterintuitive, prescribed burning of forests can actually reduce the amount of wildfires and its devastating effects. This is because this acts as a tinder for wildlife and returns essential nutrients back into the earth, allowing for new, fresh plants to grow. This reduces the chances of a wildfire happening because new offspring of plants tend to be more healthy and tend to not be as dry as older plants (remember that prescribed burning can be used to burn down dry plants in exchange for fresher plants!).
Beware!
Although we have measures that can help reduce the chances of a wildfire from occurring, it is important to remember that these measures cannot be treated as a cure. It must be treated as a preventative measure. We need to remind ourselves that prescribed burning and other measures are only for preventing wildfires from occurring and such preventative measures do have a limit. “What kind of limit?” you may ask. External factors such as climate change can overwhelm the preventatives, thus rendering them almost useless. This is why climate change is such a huge issue that must be properly addressed.
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Citations:
[1] “What Causes California Wildfires?: Earth.org - Past: Present: Future.” Earth.Org - Past | Present | Future, 16 June 2022, https://earth.org/what-causes-california-wildfires/#:~:text=Rising%20temperatures%2C%20drought%20conditions%20and,fire%20season%20in%20the%20state.