voiceofsandiego.org: James Goldsborough... Consequences of the Fires

Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | The two worst fires in California recorded history have now struck San Diego County within four years time. While we applaud our community spirit and take stock of the progress we’ve made in fighting such disasters, it’s also time for a dispassionate assessment of what these repeated natural catastrophes mean for our future.

Neither the Cedar fires of 2003 nor the massive fires this month compares to the damage inflicted on New Orleans two years ago, where deaths topped 1,500 and insurance claims reached 40 times the estimated $1 billion in claims San Diegans are expected to file for losses this year. But New Orleans is a special case, a city that exists thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, which (incredibly for an official agency) accepted full blame for the failure of its levees during hurricane Katrina. The Corps is spending $4 billion to rebuild the system to resist future hurricanes.

But what can San Diego do to resist future fires, especially if the danger is growing worse because of climate change? Evidence shows that temperatures have risen 1 degree over the past 15 years in the western states, and rising temperatures mean earlier snow melt-off, shorter springs and longer fire seasons. According to the National Forest Service, nine of the worst fire seasons in the past 50 years occurred in the past decade. Whereas 15 years ago, a 100,000-acre fire was exceptional, today we are seeing 500,000- acre fires routinely (the Cedar fire and this month’s fires are in the 300,000-acre range).

Firefighters have given up trying to stop these huge fires from burning down forests. Officials reiterated constantly last week that as long as the Santa Anas blew and smoke and heat kept aircraft grounded, firefighters could only wait for the elements to improve. When they finally did improve, the primary job was to save houses, not forests.

Will all these houses be rebuilt? Should they be? With the forests burned out and the land barren, one could argue that building can now go even deeper up the mountains and into the canyons, and that semi-rural areas will become even more inviting for our county population, growing by 40,000 people annually. Insurance rates will increase for people in fire zones, but insurance companies, with record sales and profits last year, can easily afford a $1 billion quadrennial charge to cover fires in San Diego.

One problem with destroying the eco-system to accommodate more sprawl into the hills is lack of water. The rise in temperatures and earlier springs means not only longer, more frequent and vaster fires, but lighter snow-packs in the mountains and less water to put the fires out. Well before the fires, the Metropolitan and San Diego water systems announced 8 percent rate increases this year, with heavy users paying penalties.

San Diego’s future, especially with a growing population, is linked to slowing the rate of temperature rise, now one degree each 15 years. If we are to expect 300,000-acre fires every four years and less water to fight those fires, we have to begin to reverse the trends that have made last year and this the worst fire seasons in history. Just as New Orleans cannot survive without fixing the problem that caused its destruction, San Diego cannot thrive if it must face $1 billion fire ravages every four years -- or, as warming increases, even more frequently.

The evidence on global warming is decisive. Al Gore got all the attention for the Nobel Peace Prize, but half that prize went to the IPCC, the panel of scientists -- including three from San Diego’s Scripps Institution -- that has worked together for two decades to amass evidence on global warming. The dissent from the consensus on global warming is now so marginal as to be dismissed as either crackpot, as in Michael Crichton’s "State of Fear;" or delusional, as in Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg’s claim (Denmark is long on water and short on fires) that temperature is rising but that it doesn’t matter.

San Diego cannot afford to hitch its future to novelists or Danish dissidents. The evidence that Mother Nature has given us in the past 1,460 days is too powerful, and for those who might want to think that these fires are just our bad luck, I would point out our fires are symptomatic of what’s occurring throughout the American West. If San Diego gets more attention it’s because we are the biggest city living in a fire belt. Ketchum, Idaho; Yellowstone Park, Santa Barbara, Malibu, Phoenix, Tucson have all had big fires in recent years, but nowhere else did a half million people have to be evacuated.

The thousand families who lost their houses will soon start rebuilding, though maybe some won’t choose the same spot. Some families lost houses they had rebuilt after the 2003 fires, and perhaps twice will be enough for them. But even as we rebuild, we need a sober assessment of whether we should continue to force our way ever deeper into the mountains and fire zones as global temperatures continue to rise and water resources become scarcer.

The solution is one for governments more than for individuals. Just as global warming cannot be stopped unless governments cooperate, the rush in San Diego to build deeper into the fire zones cannot be stopped unless the 18 cities and 17 unincorporated communities in the county act together. When the fires strike, as we’ve seen twice in four years, they can spread everywhere. Only the dying winds kept them from burning to the coast this time, as in Malibu. Next time we may not be so lucky.

Results may require coercion. In an action likely to be repeated throughout the European Union, France last week began debating measures to impose special duties on imports from countries -- notably the United States and China -- that have not signed the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. "It is not right," President Nicolas Sarkozy, told an audience that included Al Gore, "that our industries, which have adopted measures to meet Kyoto standards, should be subject to competition from industries that are exempt."

James O. Goldsborough has written on foreign affairs for four decades, both from the United States and abroad, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Herald Tribune, International Herald Tribune and Newsweek magazine for 14 years, reporting from more than 40 countries. Visit his website here. Submit a letter to the editor here.

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1. jad wrote on October 29, 2007 8:10 AM:
"San Diego cannot afford to hitch its future to novelists, says Mr. Goldsborough. Or, for that matter, columnists, particularly those with the agenda of this one. What begins as a sober call for risk assessment ends with the usual left wing rant for Kyoto Treaty ratification. First, many scientists who believe in the dangers of global warming are quite cool to the Kyoto protocols, which are more hype than teeth. Second, Goldsborough hasn't even attempted to make an argument to support his blanket statement that SD homeowners are destroying the eco-system through sprawl. Third, if he did so it would fly in the face of the rest of his column which argues that global warming makes these fires inevitable, period. Jim, you're right, we do need a dispassionate analysis...which would be a first in a Goldsborough column."

2. Real Solutions wrote on October 29, 2007 8:24 AM:
"The real problem is not 1 degreee temperature rise, but the inattention to clearing of brush and dead vegation which is fueling the fires. Of course standing in the way of this real solutions are environmentalist who are afraid a frog might be disturbed. The Voice of San Diego needs to get off the global warming kool aid; it is becoming really tiring to read the voice of san diego blaming everything on "global warming"."

3. CheckYourFacts wrote on October 29, 2007 9:35 AM:
"I think you should balme war in Iraq on global warming"

4. Realist wrote on October 29, 2007 11:54 AM:
"Here we go again..."human beings are the problem." I wonder if Goldsborough, or Al Gore, or the IPCC for that matter, were around when the Vikings named Greenland. They did so because it was "green". Now we're worried about the ice melting? What about the demise of the ice age? Did my Ford cause that too? Maybe we're not warming, maybe we're still thawing. Regardless, I doubt there is anything we can do about it. We aren't as powerful as we would like to think. I'm sorry, but 1 degree of warmth cannot possibly be the catalyst for these kind of fires. Real Solutions was correct about the real problem. In my grandfather's day, they didn't have these problems because they thinned the forests and brush. Simple solution, and it worked like a charm! I mean really, why save it if it is going to burn?"

5. Amazing wrote on October 29, 2007 12:03 PM:
"In the early '90s, I had the opportunity to study under one of the Scripps scientists on the IPCC who shared the Nobel Prize. Too bad some people are totally incapable of comprehending scientific facts and critical thinking!"

6. CommonSense wrote on October 29, 2007 12:35 PM:
"Why don't we listen to the geologists and stop building where we shouldn't?"

7. blackcarpet wrote on October 29, 2007 2:18 PM:
"Real has it right, clear the brush. The fire fighters are already asking for more personnel. The should hire brush clearing staff - or, dare I say, they should be doing brush clearing work themselves. Fire is a natural part of our environment. Started by people or lightning, the brush will burn sooner or later. Global warming, so what. President Putin is all for it."

8. lee wrote on October 29, 2007 5:54 PM:
"Did anybody notice that last week NASA revised their estimates on the rise of the globel temperature. Since the 1930's we have risen .12c, not the 1.0 degree Al Gore talks about. Their formula was wrong. We need smart growth in the Southwest, we are in a long drought. We should control the brush, build defensible communities. Fallen powerlines cause a lot of the fires. Maybe we should spend more for undergrounding, that also would eliminate the threat of childhood cancers from living to close to them. This is all fixable. We don't need to stop all growth. Water supplies will become a larger issue. The tap is close to dry, we need communities which use less water"

9. rrrr wrote on October 29, 2007 7:12 PM:
"blah, blah, blah global warming, blah, blah, blah sprawl. Just say what you want, dammit, and be specific. If you haven't thought it through enough to make a couple or three specific proposals and back them up, don't bother. And in the interest of fair disclosure, what side of town do you live on? It's a little disingenuous to whine about sprawl if you live in Scripps Ranch."

10. Rocky wrote on October 29, 2007 11:31 PM:
"Fires are a natural occurrence. That's how some vegetation regenerates and these plants need the fires to activate their seeds. San Diego has over built until there is no place to go except East and the greedy developers want desperately to rearrange the serenity of the mountains and the backcountry with urbanization. Once this takes place there probably will be less fires. There will also be a serious threat to our Eco-system. The backcountry is dependent on groundwater and once that is gone there will be no imported water. If building is to continue in the deep rural areas, then tight restrictions must be applied. The county has been working on General Plan 2020 for many years now to address this problem, however it's political and the developers have a strong hold on county government and thus by the time GP2020 is implemented it will be to little to late."

11. Poptech wrote on October 30, 2007 10:06 PM:
"NO 'Consensus' on "Man-Made" Global Warming: link You may want to do some research before you make ridiculous statements."

12. Poptech wrote on October 30, 2007 10:06 PM:
"NO 'Consensus' on "Man-Made" Global Warming: link You may want to do some research before you make ridiculous statements."

13. Poptech wrote on October 30, 2007 10:06 PM:
"NO 'Consensus' on "Man-Made" Global Warming: link You may want to do some research before you make ridiculous statements."

14. Greg Duch wrote on October 31, 2007 6:49 PM:
"The atmosphere is already warming due to the escape of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The hot, dry, windy, weather helped to ignite and proliferate the wildfires last week. Taken as a whole, all of the wildfires ate up megatons of oxygen and conversely, sent millions and millions of tons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere--see satellite photos from NASA. So, the firestorm sent more carbon gases into the atmosphere, than all of the autos in San Diego County do in a dog's age. Vicious circle. Global Warming---Hot weather---Firestorms of Greenhouse gases--More hot dry weather--more firestorms, ad infinitum."

15. Voltaire wrote on October 31, 2007 10:42 PM:
"While everyone seems to blame SANTA ANA winds and the so called natural causes of the Fire as if they were inevitable, there is an overdue analysis that need to be made to prevent and correct the deficiencies that lead to a rapid extension of the fires and the inability of SDFD to block and minimize, control and contain the fires before they spread to urban populated areas. Yes there are a group of things that could have been done to minimize this catastrophe and is not circumscribed to the lack of spotters inside of military or private contracted aircrafts to combat fires. For Example: Lets subdivide divide this analysis into A) FIRE Department Policies that affected the Firefighters response to the fires. B) Lack of coordination between government agencies C) Lack of budget to rehabilitate SDFD as stated by the retired Fire Chief Colman back 2006"

16. CommonSense wrote on December 17, 2007 6:32 AM:
"(1)Create building codes that require houses in fire zones to be fire-resistant (duh!), with stucco finishes and tile roofs. (2) Require all houses in fire zones to maintain an emergency supply of water in a pond or pool (can be done by catching and saving rainwater), a generator that can run for about two hours, and a pump to shower the top of the house with the water as the fire passes through. (3) Install sprinklers on top of houses. (4) Group housing so that a defensible perimeter can be established. (5) Surround the perimeter with banana trees, which are basically standing columns of water. (6) Require all able-bodied residents in fire zones to be qualified as reserve fire fighters. (7) Require all animal owners in fire zones to prove that they have the means to evacuate their animals, as a condition of their ownership license. See michaelpbyron.com blog."

Consequences of the Fires

By James O. Goldsborough

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