Wildfires
Coming Soon to a Town Near You...
If I handed you a globe and some pins and told you to mark every region that experienced wildfires in 2022, you'd have to mark almost everywhere there's human habitation. Siberia. Alaska. Algeria. Australia. Canada. England. France. Spain. The Amazon rainforest. India. Nepal. China. Hawaii.
On December 23, 2022, this was the message at the top of the National Interagency Fire Center site:
"One new large fire was reported in Oklahoma this week and wildland firefighters contained it at about 400 acres. To date, 65,671 wildfires have burned 7,472,995 acres. This is the most wildfires reported to-date in the past 10 years. The number of acres burned this year is above the 10-year average of 7,270,558 acres."
All 50 states experienced wildfires in 2022. In some cases, they were far from developed land and part of a natural process that some plant species even rely on in order to survive. But the statistics show the frequency and severity of wildfires is increasing dramatically, and it's time for us simple folk to act.
Mental Preparation
The biggest hurdle for people who have yet to experience a wildfire near them is just understanding that it could happen, and if it does, it will likely move fast. Imagine if it happened near you, and think of what you would need to do, where you might go, and who you would need to bring (elderly neighbors, pets, etc.). An emergency kit and overnight bag or backpack with a change of clothes including shoes and basic toiletries is a reasonable precaution for several different scenarios, including this one.
You can download the FEMA app for real-time alerts for multiple types of disasters. If an alert goes out or public officials call for an evacuation, you don't have precious minutes to waste waffling or arguing on what to do next; you need to have a plan in place ready to enact immediately.
Property Planning
FEMA provides a list of ways to minimize damage to your home in the event of a wildfire, and using the right material for your roof plays a vital role in protecting the overall structure, as floating embers are a common way that fire jumps over non-combustible areas. The most fire-resistant materials are designated Class A and includes certain kinds of asphalt shingles, clay, concrete, and slate tiles. Both materials and assembly can be rated, so a material that is less fire-resistant can still be used in an overall system to achieve Class A, and a homeowner has to think about all of the potential conditions (such as hail) when determining the best material/assembly for their area.
Make sure your gutters are cleaned regularly and seal around all utility holes with fire-resistant gap-filling material. Fire-prone areas are good candidates for gravel mulch and rock gardens in the immediate area, or the "defensible zone" around your home. Keep dead leaves, trash, and debris cleared out from voids and dead zones around your home and minimize storage of flammable patio items along the exterior. While there are types of coated and/or engineered wood that can provide exterior fire protection, other materials and siding systems such as fiber cement or stucco products can protect your home from wildfires as well. Again, you may have to take multiple threats, including severe weather into account when determining what siding will work the best in your area.
The Bigger Picture
In 2022, the US Population was just over 333 million people. That's enough of a critical mass to have a profound impact on wide swaths of our environment. With a world population now around 8 billion, that means humans are impacting the environment in roughly the same ways on almost every continent. If you go to Google Earth and randomly zoom in on areas around our country, you'll be hard-pressed to find many areas that aren't being grazed, farmed, or subdivided. That means we have an even greater responsibility to become environmental stewards, because by our sheer numbers, we have removed nature's ability to do it herself.
Yet, our numbers can also work for us instead of against us. Working within the boundaries of regulations and laws - or working to update outdated regulations, we individuals and homeowners can have a noticeable impact on our local environment in less than 3 years.
Less than 3 years.
If you don't believe that's possible, check out this village in India that changed their drought situation in 45 days. Granted, this was an extreme situation, but Americans can be just as industrious if we choose to be. We desperately need to rebuild our soil, our developed environment, and our mindset about the environment. Many people alive today don't understand what was lost during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, we've just grown up in the aftermath thinking it was normal. Healthier soil retains water and is far more resilient to climate change than the depleted, dead, compacted soil we've been producing almost everywhere we go. We can still ranch, farm, and build homes while also building healthier soil, we just need to adjust our mindset, habits, methods, and systems toward this priority going forward.
We can design our landscaping to increase moisture retention and shade where it's needed.
We can design our landscaping to increase biodiversity so that nature can once again take over the jobs that nature assigned to thousands of species to maintain balance in the spaces we don't actively manage.
We can prioritize a resurgence of trees to act as a carbon sink, reduce the Heat Island Effect, reduce energy consumption, provide greater food security, and much more.
We can support others doing work around the world that will also have a greater impact, and we can make small, systematic changes to how we live our daily lives so that we contribute less and less to problems and more and more to solutions. We don't have to be perfect, just continuously improving.
In the meantime, we can retrofit our homes and buildings toward greater resistance to severe weather and wildfire threats to prevent damage and greater costs in the future, and we can have empathy and support for people who have already been impacted. We aren't helpless, things aren't hopeless; we need to get to work.
