Wildfires are part of the deal we make to live in a state that also offers a culture of reinvention, extraordinary natural beauty and, much of the time, fabulous weather. But fires are getting worse, writes latimesopinion:
Dangerous, destructive, seemingly apocalyptic wildfires have always been an element of life in California. Like earthquakes, they’re part of the deal people make to live in a state that also offers a culture of reinvention, extraordinary natural beauty and, much of the time, fabulous weather.
But fire season — those summer and fall months when humidity plummets and hot desert winds roar through canyons and mountain passes — has changed in recent years. It’s grown longer and more dangerous. Half of the state’s 20 most destructive fires have occurred in the last four years. And about 150 people have died in wildfires in California since 2015, about as many as were killed in wildfires in the previous 82 years.
There’s no mystery as to why. Climate change has exacerbated the state’s naturally dry and windy inclination even as humans have pushed development into historically risky areas, building homes and businesses in dry, vegetation-rich parts of the state and extending transmission lines to power them. The power lines, the new development, the changing climate — this was a volatile situation even before the state’s utilities failed to invest in the technology, sometimes simple technology, that would have made their lines less vulnerable to sparking during the intensifying seasonal high winds. The combination, though, has been catastrophic. Power lines have ignited more than 2,000 wildfires just since 2014.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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