Controlling Our Burn

A lot has been said (and a lot more will be said) about which party’s environmental strategy is correct and which is defined by complete incompetence.

Have you already decided which party is which? If you have, that’s the problem.

The fight to prevail; to win; to annihilate the opposition, is the war that has rendered government from federal to city, incapable of improving safety for more Americans. Believe me, I’ve had no change of heart regarding how I feel about a party whose leader celebrates lies and crude behavior, but I am asking the “other” party (with whom I align) to consider that we aren’t improving the conflicts between us.

The California fires have brought this disconnect into focus as a perfect example of how confused and conflicting agendas do nothing but perpetuate the issues they are meant to solve.

Donald Trump came out to say as soon as the Palasades fire broke out that this was the result of liberal policy. He, allegedly, would have created a system to bring more fresh water to Southern California. The policies he has indicted are essentially progressive ones that have placed a high priority on preserving eco-systems and prioritized fire suppression over fire prevention.

Policies under Governor Newsom and supported by the Biden Administration have poured billions of dollars into hiring and training firefighters, buying and maintaining firefighting equipment and educating the public on fire safety. Fire prevention, on the other hand, that Republicans have proposed is forest management where forests are thinned to prevent such easy for fire to spread conditions.

At the center of the debate is Climate Change which fuels the dry conditions that have seen over the past two decades an increased frequency and intensity of wildfires. Only a year ago, Republicans were keen on reforestation to prevent further fires and other disasters fueled by climate change.

A strategy popular among Republicans was to plant a trillion trees. I will admit that I thought that was a great admission and a noble undertaking. Yet, fire specialists warned that could create a greater risk of fire that would spread more rapidly. Precisely the condition many Republicans are now saying Democrats created and ignored.

The same Republicans had resisted the very concept of climate change caused by carbon emissions and the warming of the planet from greenhouse effect, but now have come around to the undeniable reality of intensified climate conditions and more epic scale natural disasters. Their own constituents from farmers to coastal dwellers are demanding action.

It is easy in politics to pivot on a position depending on what actually happens. Today, after the current fires, it appears that every Republican policy maker has been behind forest management from the beginning. That is simply not the case.

The balance between fire prevention and suppression has been a policy seesaw for generations. Controlled burns, which every critic of California’s existing policy seems to suddenly know all about, have been used as long as people have lived in the west. In 1910 the focus shited away from forest management and moved toward fire suppression because of what became known as “The Big Burn” that ravaged 3 million acres across the Pacific Northwest, killing at least 85 people. That event reshaped U.S. fire policy from then on to focus on containing fires to save lives and property.

Now, we are in a situation where climate conditions are dryer, last longer, humidity is less, and winds are more severe. There is also an exploding population and growth into arid regions placing an exponential burden on systems to suppress fire. We can second guess existing policy, point fingers, say “I told you so” and pretend that we’ve all been talking about forest management to address climate change for decades, and most people will be full of s#it.

The point is, unless we prioritize cooperation and find platforms to agree on the problems themselves, all we will get are more bloviated politicians blowing wind on hot partisan embers and will worsen risks for more Americans. This is the time to give credit not to take it.