As the Eaton and Palisades fires devastated the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles County in January, the nation watched in horror. Driven by extremely dry air and wind gusts over 80 mph, the fires were unstoppable, forcing firefighters to focus on helping people to evacuate as houses and businesses burned around them. By the time it was over, the fires had destroyed over 10,000 homes and killed at least 31 people.
While smoke hung in the air in Los Angeles, some politicians and political commentators were already stridently proclaiming that these fires prove we need more intensive forest management to stop such blazes and protect communities. People were mourning, and confused, and much was still unknown about the circumstances of the fires. Many, in shock, were looking for easy answers. Congress responded by passing the “Fix Our Forests Act” (H.R. 471) through the House on Jan. 23 while the fires still burned.
After the smoke cleared, and people had an opportunity to take a closer look at the facts surrounding the fires, and a closer look at the legislation, a very different picture emerged. Neither of the Los Angeles fires was a forest fire. The fires burned through grass and shrubs, not forests. The homes were not destroyed by walls of flames but, rather, by firebrands, blown for miles by fierce winds, showering down by the millions like an ember rain.
Many soon realized that the Fix Our Forests Act contained no provisions to help communities become fire-safe through proven, highly effective measures like home hardening, defensible space pruning and evacuation planning and assistance. Instead, it quickly became clear that the act was simply a logging bill that would override bedrock environmental laws to facilitate taxpayer-subsidized timber sales on remote, backcountry public lands under deceptive euphemisms like “thinning” and “fuels reduction.” The bill contains no limits on the percentage, size or age of trees that would be cut down, killed and hauled off of public lands by logging corporations.
Perhaps it was understandable why many members of both political parties voted to pass the Fix Our Forests Act through the House back in January. When so little was known or well-understood. When the fires still burned and the pain of loss, and the fear, were so fresh. Perhaps. But not now.
Heedless of the facts and impervious to evidence, however, the full Senate may vote on a similar version of the Fix Our Forests Act (S. 1462) early next year. Logging industry contributors to congressional reelection campaigns would benefit; everyone else would lose. In fact, if the Senate passes the Fix Our Forests Act, it would increase the threat of wildfires to communities, putting homes and lives in greater danger.
Abundant research finds that removing trees changes the microclimate of forests, reducing the cooling shade of the forest canopy and increasing sun exposure, which can intensify fires. Faster wildfire speed is most strongly associated with large losses of homes and lives. Removing trees reduces a forest’s natural windbreak, increasing windspeeds and causing fires to spread more rapidly. This means fires would reach communities much faster, giving people less time to safely evacuate, and giving first responders less time to arrive and help.
As over 200 ecologists and climate scientists recently warned Congress, “We have watched as one large wildfire after another has swept through tens of thousands of acres where commercial thinning had previously occurred … .” Will Congress listen?
Chad Hanson, based in the Sierra Nevada, is a wildfire scientist with the John Muir Project and the author of the book “Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate”.