Living With Wildfire
Policy Brief authored by Sarah E. Anderson, Max Moritz, and Naomi Tague, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, 2018.
Just as Californians must live with earthquake risk, we must live with wildfires. These wildfires, shaped by ignitions, climate, and fuels, are likely to become more frequent and severe with climate change. Temperatures throughout California are expected to rise in the next decades, leading to drier fuels, longer fire seasons, and more hot days with extreme fire risk.
The 2017 experience of the largest and most damaging wildfires in California history and destructive fires in 2018 provide a window of opportunity for learning to better coexist with wildfire. But both governments and people tend to adopt only short-term responses focused on suppression and fuels management, rather than also emphasizing other policy responses. These responses don’t necessarily reduce risk effectively. Addressing the wildfire problem will require policy solutions that reflect a shift in perspective from fighting to coexisting with wildfire.
Instead of focusing on traditional approaches like fighting fires and fuels management, we must:
Make existing housing safer;
Develop future communities that avoid or accommodate our fire-prone landscapes; and
Emphasize evacuation planning and education.
Read and download the full policy brief here.
