The L.A. Fires Were Likely Not Caused by Climate Change

Tempting, but climate change isn't the villain this time around.

1. High severity fire in chaparral has been normal as far back as we can look. These fires are recurrent with short intervals. There has recently been high fuel loading due to a lack of mechanical thinning and prescribed burns, the latter of which was employed with some frequency by native tribes of many areas in California up until recently. Adding to the high fuel loading, high winds in the autumn (Santa A winds) have caused it to grow larger.

2. Not to needlessly dump on the parade of climate catastrophism but there is no evidence that these chaparral fires are worsened by climate change in any significant way. Forest fires maybe yes, but not chaparral fires. This vegetation type has always coexisted with intense fires exactly like these.

3. We cannot stop fire backed by strong winds. Putting firefighters in front of it would be homicide. An intense fast fast-moving fire is as unstoppable as an earthquake.

4. Nonetheless much of the property loss could be avoided. The forests near those homes should have been heavily thinned and then subsequently repeatedly prescribed burned. However the environmental lobby is an obstacle, and even worse is the environmental regulation. As Tyler Cowen noted in his daily links yesterday, it takes an average of 4.7 years to get through environmental reviews, even in high-risk locations. The Air Quality Board of California has been a major opponent of prescribed burning as well.

5. In any case, prescribed burns aren’t effective enough. Mechanical thinning is a much more efficient option. Every standing tree drops dead branches onto the floor. Those are the real fuel. Radically thin the trees and you remove much of the source for this woody detritus. Surface fires would then be reduced dramatically. However, thinning is even harder than prescribed burns, again for environmental lobbying reasons.

6. What is unprecedented is merely the density of human habitation and how pricey it is. When you burn so many homes of the rich, it will fundamentally change the insurance industry. Many more than at present will be denied fire insurance entirely, or will be priced out of the market. So the state will likely have to be the insurer. This means that if it maintains its frivolous attitude toward protecting homes, the state's taxpayers will incur a huge liability. This will be an interesting test of the importance of incentives.

7. More generally, neither the state nor the municipalities are still taking fire seriously. Everyone loves being near nature, but they don’t yet understand the risk. Insurance companies are going to have a hell of a time pricing the risk. Really, we should have 50 feet of concrete minimum between the edge of suburbs and Chapparel. This is unlikely, however. Same story with river and coastal properties in Florida, as risky as they are, proximity to nature will incur high demand, irrespective of risk.

8. I used to live in Eureka, up by Humboldt County. PG&E would often come to thin trees on the powerline for our property. This is reflective of the general unseriousness of California’s fight against fire. Humboldt County is very wet, take a look at our average temperature and you will see we are much colder than even The Bay. Fog resets the forest floor fuel constantly. PG&E and other organizations incur a huge opportunity cost when they pursue tree thinning in areas where it is unnecessary, and even a small amount of research would make that obvious. I am not sure how to get California to become more serious about the problem, but the urgency lives on.