California Wildfires

California wildfires is a recurrent phenomenon, with fires burning across the state almost every year. These fires have significant environmental, economic, and social impacts, leading to loss of life, destruction of property, and lasting damage to ecosystems, while wildfires are also a naturally occuring phenomenon in this part of the world that certain native species have adapted to and even need for their survival. Authorities must therefore both prevent and fight wildfires, and ensure that planned and controlled fires will take place in certain selected locations.

California wildfires are a complex issue, and it involves a combination of human and non-human factors. Mitigating the risks associated with uncontrolled wildfires requires coordinated efforts at all levels—individual, community, state, and federal—along with a commitment to addressing the underlying causes. While uncontrolled, spontanous wildfires may never be entirely preventable, through better management, preparedness, and policy, it is possible to reduce their frequency, intensity, and negative impact on California’s people and nature.

Causes of California Wildfires

Several factors contribute to the frequency and intensity of wildfires in California:

1. Climate Change

• Rising Temperatures: Climate change has led to hotter and drier conditions in California, which increases the likelihood of wildfires. Higher temperatures dry out vegetation, turning it into fuel that can ignite more easily.
• Extended Droughts: California has experienced prolonged droughts, reducing moisture in plants and soil. This makes forests and grasslands more susceptible to burning.
• Earlier Snowmelt: Warmer temperatures cause snow in the Sierra Nevada to melt earlier in the year, reducing water availability in summer and fall, when fire risk is highest.

2. Human Activities

• Power Lines: Faulty power lines have been a significant cause of wildfires. High winds can cause these lines to spark, igniting nearby vegetation. Notable examples include the 2018 Camp Fire, sparked by PG&E power lines, which became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history.
• Arson and Accidental Ignitions: Arson, careless campfires, and equipment use (such as lawnmowers or vehicles) can accidentally ignite dry vegetation.
• Urban Development: As more people build homes in wildfire-prone areas, known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the risk of fire ignition increases. Having homes in such areas will also increase how many humans that are harmed by wildfires.

3. Natural Causes

• Lightning Strikes: Lightning strikes are a natural cause of wildfires, and it is particularly common in the summer months. Dry thunderstorms, which bring lightning without significant rainfall, are particularly dangerous.
• Santa Ana Winds: These strong, dry winds originating inland can rapidly spread wildfires across large areas. They are particularly prevalent in Southern California.

Impacts of Wildfires

The consequences of California wildfires are far-reaching, affecting everything from human health to the environment.

1. Human Health and Safety

• Loss of Life: Wildfires can lead to fatalities among both residents and firefighters. The speed at which these fires spread can trap people in their homes or vehicles, making escape difficult.
• Physical and Mental Health: In adition to the deaths, uncontrolled wildfires also cause physical and mental damage to humans, including severe burns and pulmonary issues.The trauma of losing homes, communities, or loved ones in wildfires can lead to long-term mental health challenges, including PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
• Air Quality – Near and Far: Smoke from wildfires contains fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which can cause respiratory problems, aggravate heart conditions, and lead to other serious health issues. The smoke can travel hundreds of miles, affecting air quality far from the fire’s origin.

2. Environmental Damage

• Loss of Biodiversity: Wildfires can destroy habitats and kill wildlife, leading to a loss of biodiversity. Some species may struggle to recover, especially those already threatened or endangered.
• Soil Erosion and Water Quality: After a fire, the lack of vegetation can lead to soil erosion, which can contaminate waterways with ash, sediments, and toxic chemicals.
• Carbon Emissions: Wildfires release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. This creates a feedback loop, as climate change then increases the likelihood of future fires.

3. Economic Impact

• Property Damage: Wildfires cause billions of dollars in damage each year by destroying homes, businesses, and infrastructure.
• Insurance Costs: The increasing frequency and severity of wildfires have led to rising insurance premiums and reduced availability of coverage in high-risk areas.
• Agricultural Losses: Fires can devastate agricultural areas, destroying crops, vineyards, and livestock, leading to significant economic losses for farmers and the local economy.
• Tourism Impact: Wildfires can deter tourists, leading to losses for businesses that depend on visitors, especially in areas known for outdoor recreation.

Mitigation and Prevention Strategies

Addressing the challenge of California wildfires requires a combination of prevention, preparedness, and adaptation strategies.

1. Forest Management

• Controlled Burns: Also known as prescribed burns, these are intentional, carefully managed fires that reduce excess vegetation and prevent larger, uncontrollable wildfires. By reducing fuel loads, controlled burns can make future wildfires less intense.
• Thinning Forests: Selective logging and clearing of dense underbrush can reduce the amount of flammable material in forests, decreasing the likelihood and severity of wildfires.

2. Infrastructure Improvements

• Upgrading Power Lines: Utilities like PG&E are investing in upgrading power lines and infrastructure to reduce the risk of sparks that can ignite wildfires. This includes burying power lines underground and installing high-tech monitoring systems.
• Fire-Resistant Building Materials: Encouraging or mandating the use of fire-resistant materials in homes, particularly in the WUI, can help reduce the damage caused by wildfires.

3. Community Preparedness

• Early Warning Systems: Enhancing early warning systems and evacuation plans can save lives by giving residents more time to escape.
• Education and Awareness: Public education campaigns about fire safety, including how to create defensible space around homes, can reduce the risk of wildfires starting and spreading.
• Emergency Response: Strengthening firefighting resources, including funding for equipment, personnel, and training, is critical for responding effectively to wildfires.

4. Policy and Regulation

• Land Use Planning: Implementing stricter land use regulations to limit development in high-risk wildfire areas can reduce the number of homes and businesses vulnerable to fires.
• Climate Action: Addressing climate change through policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions can help mitigate the long-term drivers of increasing wildfire frequency and intensity.

5.) Understanding the role and importance of native plants and animals for fire-resiliant ecosystems in California

Wildfires occurred in the seasonally dry and windy California era long before the advent of modern cities and huge human populations in this region, and many of the native species are resilient to wildfires. Some even benefit from wildfires in one way or another. When the natural California ecosystems are allowed to function in their ancient ways, it reduces the negative impact wildfires have on nature, and this might also turn out to be a way of reducing the negative impact on humans.

What are pyrophytes?

Pyrophytes are plants that, through evolution, have adapted to handle wild fires remarkably well. Passive pyrophytes are fire-resiliant (especially if the fire passes through the area quickly) and will, after the fire, have an advantage since many other plants have been killed or seriously damaged. Active pyrophytes are not merely fire-resiliant; they promote fires by producing volatile oils.

Examples of adaptations that can make a plant more fire-resiliant:

• Thick bark
• Tissue with high moisture content
• Underground structures, including energy storage, that will help the plant grow back quickly after a fire has damaged its above-ground structures.

What are pyrophile plants?

Pyrophile plants require fire to complete their cycle of reproduction.

Sequoiadendron giganteum – a pyrphyte native to California

The giant sequoia is a coniferous tree native to the groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. Today, fewer than 80,000 specimens remain and the species is listed as endangered by the IUCN. Restoring the numbers might be a key to mitigating the negative effects of wildfires in California.

Giant sequoias can live for a very long time, and the oldest known giant sequoia is over 3,000 years old. These ancient trees lived and thrived in California for thousands of years where they had to handle wildfires and they exhibit several adaptations.

• The bark is fire-resiliant.
• The crowns are very far up, making them more likely to survive a fire that sweeps through the underbrush.
• The cones open immediately after a fire, to take advantage of the conditions. During a wildfire, hot air will dry and open the cones.

The Giant sequoia is a pyrohile plant and needs fire to complete its reproductive cycle. This is causing a problem for the species in areas of California where wildfire prevention and mitigation is going too well (from the perspective of the tree). The seeds can only grow successfully in mineral-rich soil, where there is no competing vegetation and they get full sun. These conditions are met after a wildfire. Seeds that germinate when there has not been a fire will typically die during the summer.

Areas where fire prevention works well for a period of time, and then don´t, is also a problem. Not having any fires at all leads to ground fuel build-up, and promotes the dense growth of smaller trees, including white fir (which is a fire-sensitive tree). When a fire finally comes, it will burn much more intensely and not move through quickly. The fire can also use the white fir trees as ladders to reach the crowns of the giant sequoia. White fir trees do not have fire-resiliant bark and they are also more prone to dry out during a drought and serve as easy fuel for the fire. This in turn causes much more severe fires, which are strong enough to kill sequoias too.

Sadly, the giant sequoias are today therefore threatened by both wildfires (with a different dynamic than before) and fire supression (as they need fire for their reproductive cycle). It should be noted that since the 1970s, the National Park Service have been carrying out controlled burns in California park groves to help the giant sequoias. Having controlled fires in more of California, and promote the growth of giant sequoia and other fire-resiliant trees, could possibly help curb the severity of wildfires in the region.

Sequoiadendron sempervirens – another pyrphyte native to California

Sequoiadendron sempervirens is another example of a fire-resiliant tree native to California. The tallest specimens exceed 100 metres in height above ground. Before commercial logging and clearing commenced in California, S. sempervirens trees were found along much of the California coast, except for the southernmost part where they can´t grow because it does not rain enough there. Their range also extended into Coastal Oregon, and the estimated total range for S. sempervirens back then was circa 2 million acres.

Examples of fire-adaptations:

• The bark is thick, fibrous and very fire-resiliant. On mature trees, it is at least a foot thick.
• The tree contains very little flammable pitch or resin.
• The tree self-prunes lower limbs, only keeping a canopy far up where it is less likely to get burned by a wildfire that sweeps through the underbrush.
• Just like the other fire-resiliant species, it benefits from wildfires as they reduce competition.
• Recently burned areas are excellent for S. sempervirens seed germination.
• After a wildfire, a mature S. sempervirens can sprout a large numer of vertical shoots at ground-level, and also grow lush epicormic greenery higher up if fire damage has occurred there.

Pyrophytes and Indigenous practises in California

The fire adaptations displayed by Sequoiadendron giganteum and Sequoiadendron sempervirens are much older than the arrival of humans in California and originated as protection against naturally occuring wildfires, e.g. fires caused by lightning. Still, these trees also seem to have benefited from the presence of indigenous populations in California, as these peoples set intentional ground fires on a seasonal basis. Once California had been settled by people from other parts of the world, these intentional ground burnings were outlawed, even on lands appointed for indigenous peoples. This has promoted the growth of trees with less fire resilience and the accumulation of a lot of flammable underbrush, so when wilfires do occur, they become much more severe and can be difficult to handle even for normally fire-resiliant species. It is also a problem that these spontanous wildfires occur without warning, as opposed to controlled ground burnings that can be planned and more easily controlled.

We need to learn more about the differences between frequently occuring ground fires that moves through quickly, and the much more severe wildfires that occur when fire has the ability to spread upwards to the trunks and canopy. The latter type of wildfire will be more intense, last for a much longer time in each location, turn into a canopy-spreading wildfire, and cause much more damage.

Beavers – how this native animal species may reduce the harm caused by wildfires in western United States

Beavers of the species Castor candensis are native to California and many other parts of North America, but their numbers are much lower today than a few hundred years ago. Allowing and actively promoting the return of beavers could help reduce the damage caused by wildfires in California and elsewhere. Prior to the 1800s, the estimated beaver population in what is now the United States was around 200 million. Today, only about 12 million remain. The beavers have been hunted for their pelts and killed for creating wetlands, and general habitat destruction has also contributed significantly to their decline.

Beavers build dams, dig canals and create ponds. That way, the help more water stay within that location instead of quickly moving through the waterways and ending up in the ocean. The environment becomes moister and less fire prone, and is sometimes even capable fo acting as a fire-blocking border (firebreak).

One notable example of the how beaver-built wetlands can survive a wildfire is the 2018 Sharps Fire in Idaho, where 65,000 acres were charred. Afterwards, the beaver wetland within the burned area was still green and thriving. Satellite images of California, Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming also show vivid green patches in otherwise burned lands – patches associated with beaver-built wetlands.

The environments formed by beaver activity create a multitude of fire-resiliant refugees for animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians who will seek out these shelters and hunker down during a wildfire. Some farmers are now looking into the benefits of having substantial beaver wetlands on their properties to provide refuge for livestock during fires, especially since moving livestock out on trailers quick enough might not always be possible.

In Tulare County, California, beavers are now being reintroduced to improve the area´s wildfire resilience and boost water quilty. The drought-stricken Tulary County is located in the Southern Sierra Nevada and is at high risk of having devastating wildfires. In 2024, the State of California Fish and Wildlife Department and the Tule River Tribe placed a family of seven beavers – three adults and four youngesters – in the Eagle Creek of the Tule River. Later, another two beavers were placed in the Miner Creek on Tule land, and there are plans to make even more releases soon. The reintroduction of beavers is something that the Tule River Tribe has been working hard for. Their ancestral lands were once rich in beavers, but efore the recent reintroductions, beavers had been absent here for decades, and their numbers were low even before that. Beavers were traditionally a strong feature of the landscape here and they can be seen depicted at Painted Rock, just next to the South Fork Tule River, in the form of pictographs made between 500 and 1,000 years ago.