Sure, there had been wildfires in California before. But 2017 was the year it got realâthe year climate change came to our doorstep.
Starting late at night on Oct. 8, 2017 near Calistoga, and roaring at an unprecedented speed down the hill and into Santa Rosa, the Tubbs Fire and other North Bay fires that night eventually consumed over 8,000 buildings and took 44 lives. The timing meant that most residents were asleep when the fires hit; their speed meant that people had mere minutes to evacuate their homes on roads surrounded by orange and yellow flames, leaving prized possessions and family photos to be incinerated.
This is what we now call fire season in California. A year later in 2018, the Camp Fire started near the small village of Pulga and laid waste in the small town of Paradise and its surrounding areas, eventually becoming the most destructive fire in California history. In 2019, the Kincade Fire started in the hills of Sonoma County, destroyed 374 buildings and left an even larger footprint than the Tubbs fire. (Southern California hasn’t fared much better, with Ventura, San Bernardino and West Los Angeles also experiencing large fires in recent years.)
Fire damage is seen from the air in the Coffey Park neighborhood October 11, 2017, in Santa Rosa, California. (ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP/Getty Images)
All three of Northern California’s major fires this decade have been traced back to failing PG&E equipment. But increasing the firesâ likelihood, and playing a factor in their quick spread, are higher temperatures, plus forests and brush land left dry from years of drought. In other words: climate change.
âWhen we compare the records of forest fire areas in California against all the variables out there, the strongest correlation by far is the aridity of the atmosphere, and thatâs driven by temperature,â said Park Williams, the lead author on a 2018 study linking climate change and California’s wildfires.
The dominant driver in rising temperatures, as Williams told KQED in 2018, is âvery likely human-caused climate change.â
This is no easy problem to solve. (Certainly not as easy as ârakingâ the forest floor, as the president suggested on a visit to California after the 2018 fires.) Nor does it come without its many ripple effects on housing and the economy. We may never know exactly how many people were forced to leave Santa Rosa in 2017, but we do know that available housing, which already hovered at a two-percent vacancy rate before the fire, virtually disappeared overnight. One month later, a study showed that rents across Sonoma County had jumped by 36 percent as landlords took advantage of the demand.
The fire itself was not discriminating. It consumed the wealthy ridge development of Fountaingrove, home to many of the city’s movers and shakers, as well as the trailer park Journey’s End, across the street from Fountaingrove’s entrance. It also meant smoke for all: everyone, regardless of income level, was affected by poor air quality, including in the urban core of San Francisco and Oakland.
A volunteer organizes supplies for fire evacuees at radio station KBBF’s donation center in Santa Rosa in 2017. (Nastia Voynovskaya )
Yet as recovery spread across the North Bay, the story was the same: those with wealth were able to stay, while many low-income residents and renters, including teachers and servers and housekeepers and artists, had to move away.
Understanding the migratory effects of climate change usually involves studying animal habitats. But humans are animals too. We’d already chosen cities with temperate climates as desirable places to live. If the fires continue, and if displacement is an annual event, there may not be much of a choice in where to live anymore.
Weâll certainly lose more and more cultural history. In 2017, Santa Rosa engineer Allen Sudduth lost not just vintage musical equipment, but master tapes of local bands. The final home of Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz burned down, destroying personal effects and memorabilia. Sixty years of archives from the electronic music pioneer and field recording engineer Bernie Krause burned to the ground. These are only three examples of many.âI only had time to make sure my wife could make it to the car,â Krause told KQED in 2017. âThe road was completely on fire. We drove through a wall of flames and were lucky enough to get out.â
As fires become an annual event, we’re getting pretty good at reporting for duty.
In 2017, we at KQED were heartened to see people like Brian Fies, a cartoonist who turned the loss of his home and all his belongings into an Emmy-winning story, providing understanding and catharsis. Or people like Mark and Terri Stark, who lost a restaurant in the fire but kept their other restaurants open to feed evacuees. People like Clementine Lee, who arranged face-painting for evacuated children after her own house burned down, or the Loveland Violin Shop, which loaned instruments to students whose violins burned in the fire after the owners’ own house burned down. Organizations like Sonoma Family Meal, which stepped up to provide free meals to evacuated and displaced residents. Artists like Mikayla Butchart, who designed the defining logo of recovery and raised over $20,000 for fire relief with it.
Terri and Mark Stark at their Santa Rosa restaurant Bird & The Bottle. (Wendy Goodfriend)
These stories go on and on. If there’s any good to come of the fires, it’s that we’re better prepared now. In 2019, when the Kincade Fire broke out, everyone knew their role. And though 174 houses burned, no one died.
Weâre also prepared with regular power shutoffs, now a routine occurrence for thousands of customers when fire danger is high (though they did not stop PG&E equipment from starting the Kincade fire, and pose additional risks for people with disabilities). Meanwhile, lawsuits against PG&E continue, and pressure has increased statewide for the utility to become publicly owned.
Smoke in the air, no power, evacuationsâat KQED, we refuse to call it the new normal. Fire season may be an annual occurrence now, but thereâs nothing normal about it.
Copyright 2019 KQED