Perspective: WildfiresA Year after Paradise Fire, California Lawmakers Hope to Keep History from Repeating

Last year’s Camp Fire in California offered a scenario officials hadn’t planned for: thousands of residents fleeing at the same time from a town overcome by wildfire — and with few ways to get out. Many others perished in their cars, killed in the blaze that ultimately took 85 lives.

Taryn Luna writes in the Los Angeles Times that adire need for better evacuation routes was just one hard lesson of the Camp fire, a tragedy that prompted California’s elected officials to try to prevent history from repeating itself.

Luna writes:

In the year since, the governor and California Legislature pushed through laws requiring cities and counties to identify inadequate evacuation routes in residential developments built in hazard zones, and increased funding to update the 911 system and reduce the kinds of vegetation that fueled the Camp fire. But other bills to address politically fraught issues fizzled in the Legislature, were vetoed or dramatically scaled back.

Driven by disaster, wildfire was at the top of the Legislature’s list of priorities as it started 2019, and a series of events forced lawmakers to broaden their focus and consider much more than prevention.

The governor declared a preemptive state of emergency in March and waived environmental regulations to expedite nearly three dozen local forest management projects to protect communities from wildfires. Newsom redirected California National Guard troops from the border to help the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection begin prevention work and called up an extra 400 seasonal firefighters earlier than usual. The state was also given authority from the U.S. secretary of Defense to fly the National Guard’s unmanned aerial equipment to help map active fires.

The budget signed into law by Newsom in June envisioned a sweeping response to the crisis — nearly a billion dollars for local, regional and state efforts to prepare, respond to and prevent wildfires. In addition to the funding to update the 911 system, the money included $67.5 million to boost firefighting and $127.2 million for new air tankers and helicopters to improve aerial attacks. The administration also provided permanent funding to position fire equipment in areas of the state where extreme conditions are anticipated so firefighters can access and fight blazes more quickly.

Communities ravaged by fire received $31.8 million to recoup property tax revenue, a significant concern for towns that have been wiped out by blazes and whose residents have been displaced. Another $28.8 million was dedicated to recovery, with an additional $10 million directed specifically to Camp fire efforts.

Legislators and fire prevention experts have offered many ideas to make communities more resilient, Luna writes:

Fireproofing homes in vulnerable communities is critical to preventing the spread of wildfire in California, said Max A. Moritz, a wildfire specialist with the UC Cooperative Extension and an adjunct professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. Moritz said too much of the political conversation has instead been focused on reducing fuels.

“If you go back and look at Paradise, look at Santa Rosa, it’s the homes that were burning,” he said. “It becomes a home-to-home spread. The homes were the fuel. One billion dollars is a tiny drop in the bucket, and it could have huge positive repercussions.”