This week I’ve traveled through Santa Rosa repeatedly, on my way between the Bay Area and Forestville. I’ve seen the fires and the devastation, and I’ve been breathing the smoke. We’re now almost six days into the disaster, and the shock is wearing off, so it’s time for lessons learned (or woulda-coulda-shoulda, if you prefer).
- Consider urban vs. rural-residential issues separately. I don’t have much to say about rural and rural-residential fires, because they are all-too-frequent, and the issues and (partial) solutions are out there. Urban wildfires are way less frequent, but more devastating.
- The fires themselves are a natural phenomenon. Land development and climate change may affect the timing or trigger specific occurrences, but these places have always burned. When the Santa Ana winds blow, any spark can become an explosive conflagration.
- I don’t think there is any way to make a single-family house or single-family neighborhood safe or survivable in a fire whipped by 50 mph winds. We should all accept the risk of property loss and instead focus on getting people out of harm’s way when the time comes.
- I think most of the blazes were sparked by PG&E lines that were torn apart or knocked down by the wind. Totally preventable. A scandal, really. It is ridiculous and unconscionable that, in California’s disaster-prone environment, electrical lines haven’t been undergrounded in all urban areas, and that aerial lines in rural areas haven’t been upgraded.
- The warning and evacuation systems were inadequate. What would work? Pole-mounted loudspeakers and lights that could be activated instantaneously and remotely. This could be implemented throughout urban areas, starting with the ones that are most obviously vulnerable.
- People who live in vulnerable areas should have an app that alerts them when Santa Ana conditions are forecast, and the app should tell them to sleep with the phone on and the sound up pending an evacuation alert.
- Most people who died were 75+ and/or had limited mobility. Maybe at least a registry so first responders can prioritize during an evacuation?
- Immediately after the 1991 Oakland fire, there was talk of rebuilding the neighborhoods differently—at least widening the roads where people died in traffic jams. Almost none of these potential changes were implemented. There is a lot of opportunity to upgrade and consolidate land-use intensity in the burned-over areas of Santa Rosa and Larkfield/Wikiup, but it is unlikely to happen.
- Common thread: Vulnerability to disaster is part of the cost of the weakening of our government. This includes budget cuts, poor land-use planning, and restrictions on eminent domain. Progressive people need to sharpen their position on supporting government, including reasonable control over property rights and private decision-making. Some things need to be decided collectively, via democracy, rather than individually, or we all pay the price.
