Battling blazes

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Wildfires. Since 2019, the average wildfire season in California brings about 75-hundred fires annually

SOUND: FIRE FIGHTING FROM MONDAY

MARY REICHARD, HOST: One of the biggest fires so far this season is the Post Fire. It began last Friday north of Los Angeles. It’s burned more than 15-thousand acres. As of Wednesday morning, was about 40 percent contained.

BROWN: WORLD’s Paul Butler comes now to explain why wildfires are increasing in frequency, and introduces us to a Christian firefighter with a few solutions.

AUDIO: [WEATHER FORECAST FROM WINTER]

PAUL BUTLER: Above-average precipitation this winter reduced the early-season wildfire risk for most of the western U.S. But that rain and snow early in the year means more ground cover months later, and that creates a new problem as summer heats up.

Anthony Marrone is fire chief for Los Angeles county:

MARRONE: Unfortunately, this vegetation will soon dry out and become fuel for wildland fires…

That dried grass and other undergrowth is known as the fuel load. This summer’s load is high, similar to California’s summer of 1970. It was the year that changed how the state battles fires.

HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY: Dozens of small fires started in widely separated areas…

The Laguna fire was the one of the largest and most devastating California fires in history. On top of that, more than 700 additional fires popped up across the state in the weeks following. 20,000 firefighters fought the blazes, but they couldn’t communicate effectively, they weren’t equally trained, and response times were slow. The fire destroyed more than 1400 structures, and killed five firefighters and at least 8 civilians.

Soon after, California launched: Firescope, a statewide program that makes communication and coordination possible to fight many wildfires all at once across many departments.

So response time is much better than it was 50 years ago, but when fires begin in remote areas they can go undetected, at least until they’re too big to get under control quickly.

So some communities are turning to technology for help. Start-up companies like Pano AI are using high quality 360 degree video cameras and machine learning systems to monitor large areas of forest as a first line of defense.

MAYOR CRUICKSHANK: Welcome this morning…

The city of Ranchos Palos Verdes just installed one of these high-tech fire towers earlier this month. Lizzy Malmarth is an account executive with Pano AI:

LIZZY MALMARTH: So every minute, a panoramic image is being taken that is scanned by AI, that is trained to look for the first signs of smoke…

But monitoring systems don’t prevent fires from happening. So property owners have to do their part, what’s called “hardening their homes.” Ranchos Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruickshank:

MAYOR CRUICKSHANK: This includes simple steps like maintaining a defensible space around your home, keeping your roof and gutters clean and using fire resistant materials to protect against wind blown embers and fire.

In the last 100 years more people have moved into areas that used to be wilderness. And that’s meant firefighting has shifted to prioritize suppression, putting fires out in order to protect property.

Jon Hill is a 36-year veteran firefighter. He currently serves as operations commander for the city of Aurora, Colorado.

HILL: We're great at suppressing stuff, but it's also led to a problem.

The problem is that by working so hard to avoid fires, it means in many areas, the land is carrying a much higher fuel load than is safe. The more fuel there is, the more damaging wildfires become we they happen. One solution according to Hill is a controlled fire to clear away that fuel at least in our country’s vast federal lands.

HILL: Fire is not always a bad thing…

It’s called “prescribed fire.”

HILL: And that helps, overall, in just the forest ecology.

Fighting fire with fire has a long tradition in North America. Native Americans used prescribed fires long before colonists moved west. It turns out that it’s good for the land. Forests and wildlands recover quickly after low intensity burns, usually within 1 to 5 years. The reduced fuel load also lowers the risk of severe fires that can take decades to recover from.

HILL: It's just cleaner and it's, it's a healthier forest in the long run.

Commander Hill began his career with the U.S. Forest Service on a trail and hand crew: digging trenches, and creating fire breaks. Today he leads a team of firefighters. It’s dangerous work.

HILL: Every time I go out my wife and, we pray. We pray for the crews on the line. We pray for the people in harm's way…because we know what we're going to run into in these situations. And we just pray for…that everyone comes home.

Hill has a special bond with many of the firefighters he’s worked with over the years. Every morning he sends out a daily bible verse to a text group.

HILL: It's a way of it, just sending that encouragement of the Word of God, out to everyone, every day.

A recent verse was 2 Peter 3:18:

HILL: But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him, be the glory both now and forever. Amen…

He says those verses are a lot like “prescribed fires.” A little word of encouragement that they might not need immediately, but it often reduces the fuel load for when life gets crazy.

HILL: Especially, you just don't know, um, you don't know who's struggling with what, right, anxiety, depression, you know? I've got to be faithful in that, and I just pray that the word of God blesses them. That they're able to hear it. They have an eye to see, an ear to hear, and most of all to know His love, that's really it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

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