Forest fires char homes of rich and ordinary

The Los Angeles wildfires this week razed to the ground the wealthy and glitzy neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades apart from Eton County, and firefighters say that the fires could slow down and subside over the weekend because the wind speeds have moderated.

A new danger has however emerged with the winds changing direction and heading towards the northeast neighbourhoods of Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades has been home to celebrities from Hollywood and millionaires, including the real estate agents. Each one has a sad tale to tell, of families raised, of children spending happy times. The firefighting officials are hesitant to single out the reason as to why the fires started off.

They have ruled out lightning, electric wires brushing against each other and causing sparks. It is not even garbage fire that led to the conflagration. There is also the possibility of the fire starting in the forest when pine needles jostle against each other. The officials want to wait to ferret out the evidence if there is one from the charred remains in the forest and in the neighbourhoods.

About 150,000 have been evacuated and another 160,000 could be asked to vacate as an emergency measure. The rich and the poor are equally grieved over their burnt homes. But there are apprehensions of the not-so-well-off that their insurance claims are likely to be overlooked or rejected as the big insurers are likely to pay attention to the claims of the rich folk. So far about 11 people are found to be dead during the fires.

As the evidence stands today, no one can be blamed. The most likely culprit could be climate change because there is the distinct possibility that the heat could have triggered the fires.

But there is as yet no evidence to show that it is the higher temperatures that lit the fire. What is however clear is it is the wind speeds that caused greatest damage. First, the fires spread fast and wide. Second, the firefighters were helpless in containing the fire because they were helpless in the face of gusty winds. One of the firefighting officials’ helpless comment was that one has to wait for the wind to slow down so that the fires could subside.

Forest fires have been a regular occurrence in California, but the fire that wrecked parts of Los Angeles was the deadliest in memory.

After the fires subside the arduous task of rehabilitation of people who have lost homes and the reconstruction of the wrecked neighbourhoods would begin. There will be hassles for the people and haggling with the insurance companies.

It will be necessary for the state government and local authorities to take steps to clean up the destruction and help people to get back on their feet. Outgoing President Joe Biden had declared the fires to be a major disaster and assured that the federal government will bear the expenditure of restoration for six months.

Meanwhile, rescue missions from neighbouring states as well as Canada across the border have been rushed to Los Angeles to help the local firefighting machinery to cope with the disaster. The obvious precautionary measure to be taken by the state and local authorities is to detect the forest fires quickly enough to contain them. But it is no easy task.

Technologies like the drones have to be pressed into service to detect fires, and there should be other ways of ground surveillance through satellite imagery. Forest fires have never been on the top of the agenda because they seemed much too localised. But all over the globe, from the Australian forest hinterlands to the Amazon, forest fires have taken on menacing proportions. There is no way of ignoring them.