Climate Change And Wildfire

The massive fires in Southern California last month point up a problem that is not going away anytime soon. Larger populations of people are living in areas that are essentially desert and chaparral regions. When "Santa Ana" winds come through in the Fall, all the dry combustible vegetation can be ignited by arsonists or accidental fire.

The result is what we have all seen on television or cable--hundreds of thousands of people relocated to evacuation centers and houses burned to the ground. More people live in Southern California than almost any region in North America (est. 24 million.) That's a lot of vulnerable people.

But what effect does this have on other populations throughout North America and the globe at large? Turns out, these fires produce a great deal of carbon dioxide emissions and "could complicate carbon emissions monitoring". Since large wildfires have increased in the last twenty years, the release of CO2 emissions from fire "can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from th entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state."

In other words, the bell tolls for all of us--not just people in greater Los Angeles and San Diego-- as population pressures disturb ecosystems and create macro problems for the enviroment.

It seems scientists who get thier ideas published or profiled are at a concensus that the earth is getting warmer; the only question is can we do anything about it.

Critics of intergovernment and local agencies doing something serious about the enviroment will point out that other nations, usually China or India, will continue to fire up coalpowered plants while we propose to shut them down. Somehow, in this thinking, increased enviromental regulations will translate as a benefit to China and other developing nations in economic gain.

But, given the pollution around Chinese and Indian cities, what is the good of being the winner in a race where you create an unhealthy athmosphere? We can't do much about China in the West, or the fallout from their coal plants, but we do have the power to contain fire through strict enforcement of housing codes and clearing rural areas of brush to help create fire breaks.

Containing fire through eliminating combustible vegatation and flammable materials around houses and buildings seems just as important as finding a way to run vehicles on non-carbon energy sources.

The info on major fires and the enviroment are according to a study in the online journal, Carbon Balance and Management |