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Boiling Point
Boiling Point introduces: Rebuilding L.A.
00:44:46
This week we’re sharing an episode of another L.A. Times Studios podcast, Rebuilding Los Angeles. Hosted by Kate Cagle, this episode discusses post-fires Los Angeles and what our city can do to live smarter in the face of climate-fueled fires.
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- [00:02]
Mary Knoff
Hi, Mary Knoff here, one of the producers of Boiling Point. We wanted to share an episode of another great LA Times Studios podcast that we think you'll really like. Rebuilding la. The show discusses post fires, Los Angeles, what residents and politicians are doing and what work still needs to be done. The episode you're about to hear is particularly relevant to our Boiling Point listeners. It's about how our city can live smarter in the face of climate fueled fires. The host, Kate Cagle talks to a myriad of people, including Sammy's fellow environmental reporters Haley Smith and Ian James. Hope you enjoy.
- [00:45]
Kristin Swardoski
Our house was a 1950s ranch house, single story, two bedrooms and an office. It was just, you know, a modest house. It was comfortable. We loved it. For the three of us, it was the perfect size size. When we bought it, we thought, oh, this will be, you know, our first home, right? Our starter home. But then as the years went by and we thought, well, no, this is where we're going to stay forever. My name is Kristin Swardoski. I am a registered nurse at the local hospital in Pasadena. I've lived in Altadena. We bought our house in June of 2009. I have a husband named Michael. We have a 12 year old son named Zachary. So we are on the west side of Altadena at my house that burned down. It's just a constant stream, as you can see, of trucks, debris removal. Over the years since we bought the house, we became very close with all of our neighbors across the street. They have a 12 year old son that my son's very, very close with. It's just a tight knit community. We're about 3/4 mile from the Sam Merrill Trail, which my husband and I have hiked. Oftentimes he'd wake up on a Saturday morning, leave, go hike for a couple hours and come back. In fact, right before the fires burned, he was setting a goal to hike all the trails and see how they connected the foothills from here. But those will be closed for a bit now, but we'll see.
- [02:24]
Mary Knoff
Ye.
- [02:33]
Kristin Swardoski
My husband and I decided pretty quickly that we wanted to rebuild because we love Altadena. I mean, we don't want to move away from here, we want to stay here. We work here, my son goes to school here. And so we just felt that for our family the best option was to rebuild. It was a financial decision and also just where our heart is right now. We interviewed a lot of different companies, like design build companies, separate architects, separate builders. We ended up going with an architect and then a soon to be builder. We haven't bid a contract yet. I mean, ideally, we don't want to be doing this process right. So a lot of people like, oh, that's so exciting. And it's like, well, I'm not really sure it's that exciting because, you know, we want our old house back. But, you know, you think about, I don't know, our house was 1950 and 25 years, a house would be a hundred years old. So at least, hopefully in my end of my husband's lifetime, a new house will last that long and we will be there for, for then. As far as my neighbors go, our next door neighbors have already sold and they moved. I know I still have a lot of neighbors that are undecided right now. Because your insurance money's coming in, you don't know if you're going to have enough. And I mean, that's a fear we have too. But we're just hoping that, you know, in the end we're to be okay. But I know a lot of my neighbors right now are in the process of trying to decide. I mean, daily, I think their decisions change. It's hard. Hopefully they're saying maybe in the fall we start rebuilding. I mean, we're trying not to hold on to too many timelines because things are just so up in the air. And my husband and I obviously have never been through this, so that we're learning as we go. We're leaning a lot on what our architect's telling us, timelines, things like that. So she's pretty confident within, not this Christmas, to Christmas after, we could be back in our house. But, you know, there's a little nervousness about that too, because are we going to be the only people right here back in our house? You know, there's a lot of unknowns. My family went through this in Campfire in Paradise. My dad's family lost everything. Multiple family members lost all their homes. But I mean, there's worry. There's people that rebuilt there that are worried. I'm worried. But I just have to hope that in my lifetime it doesn't happen again. A question I think about probably every day. Am I going to be able to get homeowners insurance? All these little worries that you have. I think to myself, well, if I don't live here, someone else is gonna live here, right? So I don't know. It's tough. It's tough. Obviously we're gonna go through all the new fire upgrades you have to do. I mean, I'm not gonna build a concrete house that's very expensive from what we hear, but we will follow all the regulations. Ideally, if we have enough money, we want to do a metal roof, stuff like that. I think the people of Altadena are resilient. I know my husband and I are, as much as we can be. What I hope for Altadena is that I know it's going to be a slow process, but I just hope that it rebuilds to where it's that sense of community and safety that you felt before. When you'd walk through the neighborhood, you saw the same people. When you go to the parks, you'd see the same people constantly running into people that you knew through baseball, school, preschool. I mean, I'm hoping that it bounces back even better than it was before. And I think it's possible. I just think it's going to take a lot of time. I think people that lived in Altadena deeply love Altadena. And the people that can rebuild, I think will.
- [06:57]
Southern California Edison Representative
During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade, the Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now, as we build back, we're building stronger, cleaner and more resilient in communities most vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires. Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating, and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next storm, the next most severe event, we'll be ready. Learn more@sce.com disasterrecovery.
- [07:57]
Mary Knoff
Altadena and the Palisades are in the process of rebuilding after the devastating wildfires on the ground in la. Rebuilding after the Fires is a new video podcast series from Rebuild SoCal partnership that explores the stories of those working to rebuild. Communities are being reconstructed with the help of Anvil Construction, bringing experience and empathy to their work.
- [08:19]
Alex Hall
It's very emotional as you can imagine, but our guys and girls will take the time to sift through the ashes with them.
- [08:25]
Mary Knoff
One by one, thousands of homes will be rebuilt.
- [08:28]
Southern California Edison Representative
We are skilled union carpenters and we're.
- [08:30]
Haley Smith
Ready to go to work.
- [08:31]
Alex Hall
The operating engineers Local 12 has made a commitment to the community here and we're going to be here for the long haul.
- [08:39]
Mary Knoff
Rebuild SoCal partnership is following the journey of the families, communities and small businesses as they come back to life. Stories of unbearable tragedy and unlimited hope. Tune in to the podcast Rebuilding Los Angeles for stories you will not forget.
- [09:00]
Kate Cagle
California has always burned. In fact, there are reports of early, early Spanish explorers looking out from their ships and seeing smoke billowing above the coastline as far back as the 1500s. From LA Times Studios, this is Rebuilding LA. I'm Kate Cagle. California's Mediterranean climate is sensitive to fire. It's long been subject to swings in the weather from really dry years to really wet ones, creating conditions that can easily ignite. And then we have those Santa Ana winds. Here's how fire analyst Zeke Lunder talks about them.
- [09:46]
Alex Hall
We can fight fires in Southern California under most conditions, but not during the extreme Santa Ana winds, which are about as reliable as the tide.
- [09:57]
Kate Cagle
There have been many changes since the arrival of those Spanish explorers. Up until now, there's a lot more of us. There's more housing, more activities, more cars, more summer barbecues, more campfires, power lines that stretch for miles through the forest. These are all things that might spark a fire. Igniting that dry brush. And then there's climate change. The planet is warmer. Since 1850, the Earth's temperature has increased almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit. And globally, 2024 was the hottest year on record. Research suggests that worsened what were already terribly ripe conditions for a fire to start and quickly spread out of control. So today we're going to talk about what was happening in the environment when the fire started on January 7th. Here to help us get do that are Hailey Smith, an environmental reporter for the LA Times, and Ian James, who covers climate and water. Thank you both for being here.
- [11:06]
Haley Smith
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
- [11:08]
Ian James
Thanks. Good to be here.
- [11:10]
Kate Cagle
Ian, describe the weather conditions that set the stage for the fires.
- [11:16]
Ian James
Well, the previous two winters had been quite wet and that had led to a lot of growth of the vegetation. And then it was an extremely warm summer and fall and an unusually dry winter. And so the hillsides were covered with bone dry vegetation in these areas. In fact, it was so dry, the last eight months leading up to January was the second driest on record since 1877. And that heat in the months ahead of the event added to the dryness of the vegetation, so it was primed to burn.
- [11:53]
Kate Cagle
So, Haley, we're talking about two different mountain ranges here, right? The Santa Monica Mountains around the Pacific Palisades and the San Gabriel's near Altadena. Are there major differences between those two areas?
- [12:05]
Haley Smith
Yeah, I mean, there are slight differences, but ultimately, Southern California's mountains are dominated by chaparral and grasses. And so in the, in the fire world, grass is seen as a fine fuel, which basically means that it can dry out really, really quickly in warm weather and in dry conditions. So an Example of, like, heavier fuel might be something like a tree branch or a log that's fallen down that takes a lot longer to dry out. So here we are, leading up to these fires. We've got these hillsides that are covered in grasses that, as Ian just said, have grown up from the previous really wet winters and then dried out from the really dry summer and fall. And it's what fire folks refer to as a heavy fuel. Lo, basically, these hills were like kindling at this point. I mean, they were just tinder boxes waiting to blow. And so you add that in with the Santa Ana wind event that came through, and it was. It was a pretty bad combination when you're just talking about ingredients for a fire.
- [13:14]
Kate Cagle
Well, both of you cover climate issues, and I know that anytime we're trying to talk about a weather event and tie it to climate change, you can get into thorny territories. So, Ian, I'm going to throw you in there first, because I know that you spoke to some UCLA researchers about this, including Alex hall, who's going to be joining us in the second half of this episode. But what have they told you broadly about how climate change impacted the fires in January?
- [13:42]
Ian James
There was a lot of discussion about the role of climate change immediately as these fires were burning. And so Alex, as well as his colleague Park Williams, they saw a real need to do a rapid analysis in January based on previous research to assess and examine the role of climate change and the mix of factors that contributed to these fires. They estimated that the extreme heat accounted for about 25% of the dryness of the vegetation at that time. The fuel load that Haley was discussing, that without the influence of climate change, the fires probably would have been somewhat smaller and easier to fight. They also stress that it was fundamentally a natural disaster, but climate change is now a constant influence through higher temperatures. As scientists will often describe it, a warmer atmosphere is a thirstier atmosphere with higher temperatures that brings more evaporative demand and that pulls more moisture off the landscape from the plants, from the land itself. That's the mechanism by which the burning of fossil fuels, these rising greenhouse gas levels and the warming of the planet are translating into worsening fire risks. And it's something that's going to be with us for the rest of our lifetimes and beyond.
- [15:08]
Kate Cagle
Well, here in Southern California, we're also used to having wind events, the infamous Santa Ana winds. Haley, let's just start with the science between the Santa Ana winds and what affects them and the degree to which the wind blows in Southern California.
- [15:26]
Haley Smith
So Santa Anas are warm, dry winds that come in from the deserts to the east. And when they come up and over the mountains, they accelerate. So picture them coming up and over the Sierras, or even the San Fernando Valley mountains. It acts like the valley, acts like a bellows, just speeding them up. So we're used to these winds. They come through every year. But in this particular instance, the weather service was warning us days in advance that this was going to be an extremely strong Santa Ana wind event with 80 to 90 mile per hour plus winds, which is, in fact, what manifested. And so it was that combination of the strong winds and then the dry vegetation and the warm temperatures that really fueled this fire. And once it took off, it was pretty hard to stop it. And if you'll indulge me for a second. Just preparing. Yeah. In preparing for this conversation today, I was thinking about the Santa Ana winds, and I dusted off my copy of Joan Didion's book, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, where she has an essay that she writes about the Santa Anas. And I think it's really relevant for anyone who was here for the fires or who has lived in Southern California, because she talks about how these winds, they create a sort of tension and an unease for people in the area when they're coming through. She describes them as malevolent winds. She says when the Santa Anas come, husbands and wives get into fights, people get into more car accidents. There's sort of an. There's. There's sort of something simmering with them. And so here's what Joan says. Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse. And just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.
- [17:30]
Kate Cagle
So now that we all have chills, do we know what climate change means for these Santa Ana winds?
- [17:39]
Ian James
Well, I think that question might be best addressed to an expert. But what I've learned in talking with some scientists about it is that there isn't evidence that Santa Ana winds have been getting more intense as yet. And in fact, there's some research that suggests that they might become less intense as temperatures continue to rise.
- [18:02]
Kate Cagle
Oh, that's fascinating. Well, we also know that we have this climate whiplash, right, where we have these really dry years and then we have these rainy seasons. So what can we say about the future and adapting to it at this point.
- [18:19]
Haley Smith
So I think it's important context to understand that fire is a natural part of life in California. It is a natural part of our landscape. Fire has always burned in California since long before people were here, and it will continue to burn long after we are gone. And in fact, fire can be healthy for our ecosystems. Right. Like when fire moves through, it clears out a lot of that dead brush and that understory that we were talking about, which if it isn't cleared away, then and it can fuel these larger fires down the line. So fire in and of itself isn't necessarily an inherently bad thing, just environmentally speaking. Of course, if you lost your house, it doesn't feel that way. And so the answer to your question, I think, is that although fire is part of life here, what we are seeing now is climate change fueled fires. And these are a different kind of animal. They are larger, they are faster, they are more frequent, they are more destructive, they are more intense. And so although we've sort of learned to live with fire, we're really fighting against a different kind of beast altogether. And it makes all of this so much more challenging. And so these swings between wet and dry conditions that you just mentioned, which are also being exacerbated by climate change, it's all part of that same story of creating more explosive conditions, which is what we saw play out here in January.
- [19:51]
Kate Cagle
And Haley, part of this climate whiplash is the heat. As we're heading into summer, it's forecast to get more intense. What kind of numbers are we talking about in the next five, 10, 15 years?
- [20:05]
Haley Smith
Well, we're definitely not heading in the right direction globally and here in California. So 2024 was the Earth's hottest year on record. And in fact, the 10 hottest years on record were all in the last 10 years. I pulled some numbers from LA's most recent regional climate report. They're projecting that average maximum temperatures in the region are expected to increase 4,5 degrees by mid century and 5,8 degrees by late century. That's a pretty significant change. Meaning your average 75 degree day is now going to be an 82 degree day, for example. And then extreme heat days are also expected to increase, with the hottest day of the year up to 10 degrees warmer by mid century. And by the way, mid century sounds far away, it is not that far away. We're halfway there. So we're talking about this in many of our lifetimes, many of us will be here to feel these significant changes.
- [21:07]
Kate Cagle
Well, and it really sinks in when you think about a fire disaster, the time it takes for a community to recover is like five to 10 years. I mean, Malibu hadn't even fully rebuilt from the Woolsey fire when they got hit by the Palisades fire, which was even more destructive. Ian, how are you thinking about all this?
- [21:29]
Ian James
You know, I think there is a lot of discussion about how to rebuild smarter and safer, and especially in ways that will help prepare for the effects of climate change. And there was recently a blue Ribbon commission report that recommended creating new local government authorities to help oversee this process of rebuilding. It is a commission that was formed by County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and it includes various business and civic leaders. And they took a look at what it would take to rebuild in a climate resilient fashion, basically to rebuild safer, smarter. There are a whole list of recommendations that range from having new local government authorities to oversee rebuilding to changing water systems so that they are better equipped locally to fight fires.
- [22:32]
Kate Cagle
We've heard Governor Gavin Newsom talk about fire resiliency. We know that the state, state has been pursuing aggressive policies to address climate change. More aggressive than what's happening on the federal level. Can you give us a sense, both of you, the high level talks that are happening in our government about climate change and fires and whether or not the state is doing enough to adapt to this reality that we're living in.
- [23:00]
Haley Smith
I mean, I haven't been obviously privy to every conversation in the higher levels of government. So I can really only speak to my personal feeling on this, which is I don't think there's enough conversation about climate change in these discussions of rebuilding. And I can understand why there has been such a push to rebuild quickly. People are traumatized. The city is traumatized. People also, you know, the people that lost their homes and had their lives abandoned, of course, want to get back to some semblance of normalcy as quickly as possible. But it kind of makes me think of that part in Jurassic park when Jeff Goldblum says, we're so busy trying to see if we can do it that we don't stop to ask if we should do it. Because as we've just discussed, this area, like the Pacific Palisades and also the Angeles National Forest, these areas are prone to burn and this is going to keep happening. We have to change the way that we are approaching this to prevent it from happening again and again. I think the conversations, yes, we need to be talking about climate change, but we also can't necessarily turn the train of climate change around. Today there's still going to be some years of consequences of everything that's come so far. What we could focus on instead is what kind of building materials are we using? How are we laying out our cities? What are the evacuation routes? What are the water supplies? What are the alert systems for people in these neighborhoods?
- [24:36]
Kate Cagle
Right. What do you think?
- [24:38]
Ian James
There is a lot of tension between rebuilding better and rebuilding faster and how it should be done. And I think those debates are going to continue to play out. And in the background, climate change has increased the risk of explosive growth of fires. And so that's one more factor to plan for in addition to just the natural flammability of our region.
- [25:05]
Kate Cagle
All right, that's LA Times environment reporter Haley Smith and Ian James, who covers climate and water. Thank you so much for your time today.
- [25:13]
Haley Smith
Thank you for asking.
- [25:14]
Ian James
Thanks for having us.
- [25:16]
Kate Cagle
We will be back after a short break.
- [25:27]
Southern California Edison Representative
During one of the most severe windstorms Southern California experienced in more than a decade. The Palisades and Eaton fires ignited, leaving heartbreaking losses in our communities. Now as we build back, we're building stronger cleaners and more resilient in communities most vulnerable to dangerous weather conditions and wildfires. Southern California Edison is placing power lines underground, hardening the electric system by installing wires with protective coating and adding advanced technology to help keep communities safe. So when Southern California faces the next door, the next most severe event, helicopters.
- [26:16]
Alex Hall
Structures adjacent here at Piper Road.
- [26:19]
Southern California Edison Representative
We'll be ready. Learn more@sce.com disasterrecovery California ratepayers face some.
- [26:28]
Mary Knoff
Of the nation's highest electricity costs with a decades old solar policy at the center of debate. Net energy metering was introduced in the 1990s to boost rooftop solar by letting homeowners sell excess power back to the grid at full retail rates. But now the California Public Advocate's Office reports that households without solar are subsidizing those with rooftop systems through higher electricity rates. The Fix the Cost Shift coalition points out that this shift has led to equity concerns. Solar adoption concentrates among higher income homeowners while costs burden renters and lower income families. Assembly Member Lisa Calderon authored legislation to address the cost shift while maintaining solar incentives at 76 to 82% of current levels. Support Assemblymember Calderon and help fix California's electricity crisis. Learn more@fixthecostshift.org that's fixthecostshift.org this is Rebuilding LA.
- [27:25]
Kate Cagle
I'm Kate Cagle. We've got Alex hall in the studio with us. He's the director of the Institute of the Environment and sustainability at ucla. And he worked on that research that Ian was talking about earlier in the show. Thank you for joining us today.
- [27:42]
Alex Hall
It's great to be here, Kate.
- [27:44]
Kate Cagle
So you noted in your research that a lot more studying needs to be done on how climate change impacted the fires in January. But what can you tell us now about how climate change is impacting the frequency of fires? And the fact that what we saw this year was that things really got out of control?
- [28:05]
Alex Hall
Yeah. So as Ian mentioned, we believe that the fuels were probably about 25% more dry than they would have been otherwise without that really hot, dry summer that we had preceding the fires. So that means that the fires were probably somewhat bigger than they would have been otherwise. Without that, they still would have been a huge disaster, but probably a little bit smaller. And maybe they wouldn't have torn into the urban fabric in quite the same way that they did. So I think what we need is to perform some simulations which we're doing right now. We reproduce the fires and the winds and the fire behavior and everything, and the fuels and the placement of the homes. But we reduce the temperatures to correspond to the climate that we had, say in 1850. And we look at how the fire behaved and how much milder the fire was because of the temperatures being cooler, because of the fuels being a little bit moister. I think that's the kind of work that we need to do to make a statement about the role of climate change in the fires. That's quantitative. That tells us, well, the fires were actually X percent larger than they would have been without climate change. But we're not there yet. All we can do is say that we know that some of the factors that caused the fires to be really large and destructive were influenced by climate change.
- [29:37]
Kate Cagle
Well, you talk about the dry fuel being a factor here. And then we had this extreme wind event of hurricane force winds that were sending embers a mile down across the fire. When you talk to firefighters, they say this was something that they had never seen before. Can you talk about the wind event that we experienced?
- [29:58]
Alex Hall
Well, it was a incredible event. You know, we had sustained winds of 25 to 40 miles an hour and wind gusts that probably went from 70 to 100 miles an hour, depending on where you were. So, yes, those are hurricane force winds, but unlike a hurricane, they're very hot and dry. And so they really are the key ingredient for a really destructive wildfire. And if we look at the wind records at airports, which are the places where we have the longest records of winds, so lax, Santa Monica Airport, Van Nuys Airport. We think that this wind event, something like it, probably recurs maybe sometime between every 10 and 20 years. So this was a very intense Santa Ana event, but it's not totally unprecedented. We've had events like that before. What was really unusual is that this wind event occurred at the same time as we had these extremely dry fuel conditions so late into the wet season.
- [31:03]
Kate Cagle
Well, and the wind was happening in January after the holidays. Usually we associate with Santa Anas with the fall. Right?
- [31:10]
Alex Hall
Yeah. So the Santa Anas are fascinating. They start in October and they actually come back periodically all winter. So all the way through into the spring we have Santa Ana wind events. But once we get about an inch and a half of rain or so, and that typically occurs by the end of November, the ability of the Santa Ana wind events to produce a large wildfire is almost completely eliminated. So the rains just completely quench the kind of fire producing power of the Santa Ana wind events. So the Santa Ana wind events are incredibly scary. You know, October and November, and that's where I think, you know, the anxiety that that Joan Didion quote evokes, I think is associated with that part of the year. But then the rains come, and then after that, when we have Santa Ana wind events, it feels like summer, Right? It feels that. It's that wonderful summer feeling that we have in Southern California in the middle of the winter when we have that warm, dry weather that's very benign. But those are also Santa Ana wind events. So they have two personalities. It's a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing.
- [32:23]
Kate Cagle
So it sounds like we were in this rare, the kids would call it, doom loop in January where we had these fierce winds, we had this ultra dry brush, we hadn't gotten the rain. And that really set the table for these fires.
- [32:38]
Alex Hall
Yes, it was. It was all the ingredients for an apocalypse.
- [32:44]
Kate Cagle
Apocalypse.
- [32:46]
Alex Hall
That's how it felt to me, you know, during the fire. It felt like, you know, the sky was orange and it was dry and winds were blowing so strong and, you know, you could see the orange in the sky. It was scary.
- [32:58]
Kate Cagle
So it sounds like we live with this Mediterranean climate. Right. We already know that historically, fire is part of the ecology in Southern California and all of these conditions are getting ramped up. Do I have that right?
- [33:16]
Alex Hall
Yes. Fire is part of the ecology in Southern California, as it is in much of the western US. The difference here is that in Southern California, we are in a fire surplus relative to what's ecologically normal. We believe that before there was a lot of human intervention. The typical fire frequencies here were probably between 70 and 80 years. Oh, 70 to 100 years. I'm sorry. And now we have 20 million people living here who are doing all kinds of things in wild landscapes. They're lighting campfires, There are sparks from vehicles and garden equipment. There are power lines going through these areas. And so there are sparks that are being produced, ignition events that are being produced. There are no natural ignitions during Santa Ana wind events. So every single big Santa Ana fire that we have is most likely produced by a human ignition source. So we are messing with the natural fire regime even without climate change. And there's an optimistic side to the story which we can get to I think too, which is that because these fires ultimately are human in origin, we can also prevent them from happening by suppressing ignitions. So that's an area where I think we have control over this risk and where I think we should think much more seriously about addressing ignitions.
- [34:43]
Kate Cagle
Right. Because when we think of climate related disasters like hurricanes, people have much more of a predictability for hurricanes. You know, it's coming, so people at least have the option to get out of town. We're used to having these Santa Ana wind events. People don't necessarily evacuate ahead of a wind event. Right. If you don't know that there's going to be a fire starting, how do we adapt to that better?
- [35:10]
Alex Hall
I think that we could be much smarter about how we behave when there is a very dangerous Santa Ana wind eventually. So one thing that we're trying to do in our research right now, there's been an amazing explosion of research, by the way, in the research community to look at fire behavior and fire science. And we have been trying to identify the types of Santa Ana wind events that historically have been associated with very dangerous wildfire in Southern California. And our hope is to create a system of categorization of the Santa Ana wind events, much like what we already have for hurricanes, that would allow us to know in advance that we are facing a very dangerous situation and to also have protocols that we all agree upon in place to be prepared. I think that we need to shut down power in the wind corridors that have been identified as the most active. For this particular upcoming Santa Ana event, I think that we should exclude access to Wildlands so that people can't go into Wildlands with their cars. There can be no sparks coming from their cars, no campfires, no fireworks or gender reveal parties or anything like that. And at the same time, I think we have to Protect our communities that are impacted by things like power shut offs, so that we might want to think about having power backup systems for hospitals or other critical infrastructure. People might want to have power backup systems in their homes, in their apartment buildings so that they can continue to function when there's a power shut off. Those are the types of measures that I think we should take. We also need governance reform in the LA region. We have such a patchwork of governments and agencies that we saw this in the aftermath of the fire. They don't. They're not in sync with one another necessarily. And that creates problems when we have a big natural disaster or the threat of one. So I think we also need to think about coordination and making sure that we are regionally coordinated when there's the threat of something like a very dangerous Santa Ana event.
- [37:34]
Kate Cagle
So if the planet continues to warm up on the track that we are on now, or appear to be on now, what does that mean for fire risk down the line? 5, 10, 15 years?
- [37:47]
Alex Hall
I think Haley mentioned that we're projecting an increase, a continued increase in temperature. And that means that we will have continued intensification of swings between wet and dry. So when we have our wet season, that'll bring rainfall and precipitation. And then in the dry season we'll have extra warming and that will dry out the vegetation. Fuels will be drier at certain times and that will lead to an increase in the risk. And also when the fires do occur, we know that the size and intensity of the fires is sensitive to the temperature when the fire occurs. So probably the temperatures will be warmer when there is a fire.
- [38:29]
Kate Cagle
Right.
- [38:29]
Alex Hall
And both those factors will cause the fires to become bigger and more severe. So that's the pathway we're on if we don't learn to manage this risk.
- [38:42]
Kate Cagle
Given that we are rebuilding the Palisades in Altadena, what would be the top of your wish list for changes in those areas? Given everything we've talked about, we know.
- [38:55]
Alex Hall
That certain home hardening strategies are effective in protecting folks and protecting structures. So for example, we've had the California building codes change since 1990, so that when there is a new home built, it is required to be built to a higher standard relative to wildfire. And that has resulted in those structures being 40% less likely to burn in a fire. So Even these building codes, 40% have, are effective, somewhat effective in protecting homes. And there are further measures that we could take beyond what's in those codes that I think if we were more aggressive about it, we probably could get even more benefit. So I think that that's one piece of it. I think we have to remember also that when there is another fire and there will be another fire, it's probably not going to be these neighborhoods that are impacted. So we have to think about the region as a whole and what standards we want to encourage in the region as a whole. I think there has to be thought given to retrofits in neighborhoods that are within a mile or two, say, of Wildlands. And we have to also figure out what that radius of influence is from Wildlands, because I think the fire is demonstrated. We don't know that, so I think we have to figure that out.
- [40:25]
Kate Cagle
It's fascinating that you would bring up retrofits because we talked about that on a previous episode with Liam Dillon about the fact that there are stricter building codes, but they don't apply to these older buildings. Places like, you know, even the Pacific Palisades, it's 100 years old. Altadena had a lot of older homes that burned. And we have this huge initiative around earthquake retrofitting right now, but we don't hear about that when it comes to fires.
- [40:52]
Alex Hall
Yeah, I think there's a push to rebuild the communities that were devastated, which is totally understandable, and that's very appropriate. But I think that we have to be thinking about retrofits also in other communities. The insurance industry meltdown is driving this also. And, you know, one of the levers that we have to encourage retrofits is to create a rational insurance market where people are rewarded for doing retrofits, where they. If they do the retrofits, they do have access to lower insurance rates, and that those rates reflect the reduction in risks that people are actually producing by incorporating the retrofits into their home. So I think there's a combination of policies that we should be considering to ultimately, you know, get. Achieve a very high adoption of retrofits in areas that are very high, very high risk.
- [41:55]
Kate Cagle
Well, I think one thing that was so disconcerting about what happened in January was when those evacuation orders hit denser and denser parts of the city where it's not. We saw it's not always exactly feasible to evacuate thousands of people in a dense part of Los Angeles very quickly. The roads get clogged, you can't move, people abandon their cars, and the car is blocking the road. So it really posed, I think, a new challenge and also hit home in a lot of way for people who maybe thought that they wouldn't be impacted by fires because, you know, they live in What I call the concrete jungle.
- [42:37]
Alex Hall
Yeah, I live in Mid Wilshire, you know, near lacma. And before this fire, all of my neighbors and I felt like we were not at risk. But during the fires, as the zones that were being warned to evacuate came closer and closer to us, it felt like it was dominoes falling, and we were wondering when we would be the domino to fall. And it really is an open question, what are the risks in neighborhoods even pretty far away from Wildlands now?
- [43:11]
Kate Cagle
Now I want to ask you the big picture question, because while I'm here talking to a climate scientist, this is an existential issue for many of our listeners. And people are very concerned about having the new administration that is more fossil fuel friendly and what it means for the global effort to curb climate change. What's the pulse check now, you know.
- [43:42]
Alex Hall
I want to acknowledge the fear that everyone has. I feel it myself. I think it's a very challenging moment. In many ways, the climate dimension is scary because the administration not only seems to want to end our encouragement of decarbonization, it seems like it's almost like they want to put their thumb on the scale of the oil and gas industry and coal, and that feels very frightening. On the other hand, there have been changes over the past 10 years. The economics of renewables are so much better than they used to be, and they are out competing fossil fuels in so many arenas. Wind and solar have become so inexpensive that often it's much more cost effective to adopt them. And many other countries also are continuing their commitments to decarbonization. So I don't think it's the end game for decarbonization. And it doesn't mean that we are now on this pathway towards Armageddon, you know, that we will necessarily end up with the largest amount of climate change that was ever projected. You know, I think it's still unclear what the outcome will be. I think it's a period of uncertainty like it is in many other realms. But I definitely think it's certainly not good.
- [45:22]
Kate Cagle
Is there anything that gives you hope?
- [45:28]
Alex Hall
You know, I think that looking at the reaction of Angelenos to this fire and the galvanizing effect it's had on the way we relate to each other and our commitments to the region. My world is the academic world, and I've known so many colleagues who have been galvanized by these fires and are doing research that is new and inspired by helping to protect our communities. We've had a lot of commissions that have come out, too, and a lot of people who are very well intentioned who are interested in engaging in some supporting. So I think that's been heartening to see that and I do think it will change Los Angeles for the better. And you know, conversations like this, you know, how do we learn to live with this natural phenomenon that's very scary? How do we become more harmonious with these incredible wild areas that are around us? The fact that we're having these conversations, these were not things we were talking about very much before in Los Angeles. And I think that's really, it's really important and that's the kind of thing that I think gives me a lot of hope.
- [46:42]
Kate Cagle
We'll take it. We'll take all the hope we can get. Alex hall, he's the director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at ucla. Thank you so much for your time today.
- [46:52]
Alex Hall
Oh, it's been great to be here. Thank you.
- [46:57]
Kate Cagle
You can find us anywhere you get your podcast and please rate us and give us a review. We want to know what you think. Now. A word from our sponsor Rebuilding LA is hosted by and reported on by me, Kate Cagle. Our senior producer and showrunner is Megan Larson. Our associate producers are Jordan Patterson and Megan Botel. Our video director is Julia McCabe, our director of post production is Patrick Steward and our senior sound recording engineer is Nick Norton with audio engineering help from David Iskendarian and motion graphics by Dougal Henken. Our video editor is Michael Ray, Ben Church is our senior coordinating producer and Ann Marie Hauser is our production manager. Our podcast marketing manager is Bryn Jura and our product Marketing Director is Becca Dorman. Our General Counsel at the LA Times is Jeff Glasser. Special thanks to President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argenteri and the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. And one final thank you to all the residents of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades for sharing your stories with us. Rebuilding LA is co created by LA Times Studios President Anna Migzonian, an executive produced and co created by Darius Derek Shon.
- [48:45]
Mary Knoff
California Lawmakers Big Oil is slick, don't slip Big Oil lobbyists are working hard to roll back climate and clean energy progress to keep their profits soaring and California hooked on their dirty, expensive energy. We can't afford to slip on Big Oil's slick PR and lobbying keep California moving forward with affordable clean energy and transportation. Learn more at don'tslipca.org paid for by California environmental voters, the LA Times Food bowl is back with Night Market. Presented by Square. Join us October 10th and 11th at City Market Social House for unlimited bites.
- [49:22]
Kristin Swardoski
And sips for more than 25 of.
- [49:24]
Mary Knoff
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