This week, thousands of Oregon and California residents woke up in shelters after evacuating fire-ravaged areas. Millions of acres are burning and more than 30 lives have been lost.
No one has their hands clean in this situation. Forest management has been negligent. Climate change is fueling a drier wildfire season. Human ignorance — or blatant disregard for local regulations and common sense — also contributes.
President Trump visited Sacramento on Monday and addressed the fires in a televised briefing. By better managing forests, he said, forest fires could be virtually eliminated. California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed: “There’s no question, when you look past this decade and almost 1,000-plus years, that we have not done justice on our forest management,” he said.
Effective forest management — at both a federal and state level — could reduce the risk of forest fires. Researchers at the University of Washington reaffirmed earlier this year that fuel treatments — like forest thinning and controlled fires — “can help to decrease fire intensity and severity” while simultaneously decreasing fire risk.
While California deserves credit for its effort to promote building codes that modulate fire risk, a lack of leadership and incentives has left the majority of existing homes and buildings noncompliant.
And widespread flare-ups, like those underway this summer, may repeat and worsen each year unless both forest management and efforts to quell climate change are enacted. But it’s difficult to broach those components when there’s an environmental leadership vacuum.
In Trump’s Sacramento briefing, California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot explained that exploding temperatures were signs of climate change.
“OK. It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch,” the president responded.
“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot said.
“Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said.
Researchers at Columbia University estimate human-caused warming accounts for 47% of the West’s drought severity. They also found average Western temperatures between 2000 and 2018 have been 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than they would have been without human contributions. Researchers from NASA also have linked climate warming in recent decades to increased fire risk.
Still, in too many cases, including several of the large fires in California, human negligence sparked the flames.
At least three fires in Utah in recent weeks were started by target shooters. The massive Traverse Mountain and Knolls Fires earlier this summer were started by errant fireworks. “You can’t pass a law that outlaws stupid,” Deseret News columnist Jay Evensen recalled Gov. Gary Herbert saying a number of years ago.But for all the finger-pointing, people in Oregon, California and Utah need help — and they need it now.
In recent weeks, many Utahns have seen the damage that flames can cause. Thousands of Utahns have been forced to evacuate due to wildfires. Many of the people on the West Coast whose homes are being destroyed and their lives shattered have experienced much worse.
No level of political maneuvering or policy proposals can effectively repair the damage these natural disasters are causing, but a helping hand, an appropriate donation or a welcoming home can alleviate some of the suffering. Leaders should set aside the blame game for now until residents are back on their feet. Then they must get to work ensuring the West does not continue to burn.