“Do you see that? Our house is just beyond that ridge.” I’m standing barefoot in my backyard at 4:00 a.m. on August 18, 2020. The air is thick with smoke, and I can feel little pieces of burnt leaves landing in my hair. A family friend, Donald, is here with me, pointing out at the haze of bright red light that seems to come from right across our little valley. Donald and his family had been evacuated from their home in Boulder Creek, California, just hours earlier due to a wildfire and were staying with us until they could find their way to other family. Although that night is a blur, I remember how shocking it was to see something I had been warned of my whole life so close to home. Suddenly the 45-minute-drive distance across the valley didn’t seem so far after all.
The view from my backyard, on August 17th as a fire fighting helicopter heads for a local reservoir, and August 19th, right before my family evacuated.
The next few days would only get worse. The wildfire that threatened Donald and his family’s home would merge with other nearby fires into what became known as the CZU Lightning Complex– named for the 11,000 lighting bolts that had touched down in my home of Santa Cruz County. Due to the extreme, years-long drought the county had experienced previously, as well as strong gusts of wind that began in the days after the fires, the spread was rapid. Two days after Donald and his family came to stay with us, my family too would be evacuating, traveling South past two other separate wildfires in search of a hotel that would accept both us and our dog. Eventually we stopped at a hotel four hours from home and stayed for 10 days while waiting for news of the fire’s containment. The worst was the smoke; the wind had pushed it into the Central Valley where we were staying, and the Air Quality was regularly above 150: the point at which all people should stay inside for their health. Even miles away, the sky was a murky greyish red, and it hurt to breathe without a mask.
A map of the fire’s destruction in red, and the county outlined in black. Donald’s house is slightly north of Boulder Creek, and mine is slightly south of Scotts Valley.
For days we waited as the county’s under-staffed firefighters battled the hot, dry, and windy conditions, only to return to press conferences in the evening and report that the fire was still 0% contained. Containment is a measure of how much of a fire’s perimeter has been secured. It’s different from being extinguished, in that it only suggests that the fire will stop spreading past that point. In reality, 100% containment wouldn’t come until late September, and fully controlled (or extinguished beyond the point of danger) in December. However, small areas of smoldering fire have been found within the dense redwoods of the area as late as September, 2021. By the end, the fire would consume 86,509 acres of land, destroying 1,490 homes, including those of several of my high school classmates, and killing one. Luckily, both Donald and my family’s homes were safe in the end, but even weeks later, the smoke, ash, and even floating pieces of burnt magazines from homes that had been destroyed blew across the valley and reminded us of just how terrifying wildfires can be.
In the aftermath of the fires, many have pointed to climate change’s impact. Undoubtedly the freak lightning storm and droughts that contributed to the fires are evidence of this. Additionally, the ways in which Californians interact with the forests have also come under scrutiny. Many agree that controlled burns and the maintenance of healthy trees with little dead debris on the forest floor (called a shaded fuel break) are worthwhile projects to prevent future fires. We may not be able to control when or where lightning strikes, but we can prepare our land to prevent destructive and deadly wildfire spread.
Works Cited:
Cal Fire CZU Fire Damage Information, ArcGIS, https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer
/index.html?id=5461c7f372e24ab68ca386e73d58e35a.
Katie Evans, "CZU Lightning Complex Fire Fully Contained Four Months After Start," Good
Times Magazine, 8 January 2021, https://goodtimes.sc/santa-cruz-news/czu-lightning-
complex-fire-fully-controlled/.
Julia Prodis Sulek et. al., “250,000 acres burning across the Bay Area as state scrambles to find
firefighters,” The Mercury News, August 19, 2020, https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/
08/19/with-367-wildfires-raging-cal-fire-to-all-citizens-of-california-be-ready-to-go/.
Jon E. Keeley and Alexandra D. Syphard, “Large California wildfires: 2020 fires in historical
context,” in Fire Ecology 17, 25 August 2021, https://fireecology.springeropen.com/
articles/10.1186/s42408-021-00110-7.
Casey,
ReplyDeleteThis post made me think about the short conversations we had a few weeks ago about who is responsible for stopping wild fires from spreading. Last summer I was on my way to camp up by the boundary waters in MN but had stopped on the North Shore. There were fire fighters that had traveled all the way from New Jersey to help. It brings up the conversation of how we adequately use resources to prevent/ stop natural disasters from happening. I also remember being shocked a few years ago the first time I saw a major part of the forest after a controlled burn. I didn't like the say it looked but I know understand its positive impacts.