California Is On Fire. President Trumps Solution: Rakes? By Jill Richardson
(2018-11-21 at 13:53:42 )

California Is on Fire. President Trumps Solution: Rakes? By Jill Richardson

The United States of Americas largest state is suffering one of its worst climate catastrophes to date, but the president refuses to see the obvious.

California is in the midst of the deadliest fire our state has ever suffered.

As I write, there are 79 confirmed dead, and that number may grow as many more are missing. The Camp Fire also destroyed more structures than any fires before in our history.

An even larger area within the state is suffering from the smoke the fires are generating. It is not just unpleasant to breathe - it is toxic.

I know that President Donald Trumps expertise is not forest management, or Californias ecosystems, or anything related to Californias catastrophic wildfires.

I know that he has spent his life on the other coast, so he is unfamiliar with our way of life out here.

That said, the man has got advisers!

No president is an expert in all things.

A good president is skilled at choosing the right advisers and knowing when to weigh on them for help.

Trump is not doing that.

Thus far he has appeared to offer logging and raking as solutions to forest fires.

To non-Californians, let me provide a bit of background.

Near the coast, we have chaparral and sage scrub ecosystems. Chaparral is sometimes referred to as "elfin forest" because it consists of shrubs that, to an elf, would look like a mighty forest.

You do not log chaparral or sage scrub. There are no trees.

The closest thing to logging is when people harvest manzanita, often as decorative branches to put in parrot cages.

You can not really rake it either. It is too woody.

Also, why would you? Why would anyone take a rake to millions of acres of wild lands?

Our ecosystems evolved to burn.

Native Americans used fire as a management tool regularly.

Some species need fire to germinate. Many species remain alive underground during a fire and then re-sprout afterward.

During the long, dry season, the plants go dormant and many look dead.

It is basically kindling. When it rains again in the winter, they become green and lush with new growth.

To a large extent, the fires are natural. But there are a few ways in which human mismanagement contributes to them.

First, we spent decades suppressing fires instead of allowing them to burn. That led to a build up of fuel that is only being gradually depleted as wildland fires are allowed to burn today.

We do not let all of the fires burn, but naturally caused fires that do not threaten human structures are now allowed to run their course.

Second - and this is a big one - there is climate change.

As the planet grows warmer, more moisture evaporates, creating drier and more combustible conditions.

Years of drought exacerbate this. Given that we have already rectified our old fire suppression policy to eliminate fuel build up, climate change is the biggest threat we must tackle now.

My hunch is that President Trump is not actually interested in raking all of California.

He sees California as a big blue state, a political enemy, and he has taken an opportunity he sees to score points against it.

This is heartless and dumb. It is heartless because we have lost lives, homes, and businesses. The town of Paradise lost everything.

It is dumb even on President Trumps venal terms, because catastrophic wildfires do not only happen in blue states.

Reliable red states like Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming burn too. Glacier National Park in Montana just suffered a destructive fire this past summer.

Getting wildfire and climate change policy right at the national level helps all of us, red and blue states alike.

President Trump needs to stop making idiotic comments about raking and start listening to advisers on this before more property and lives are lost.

Reprinted here with permission from "Otherwords.org" -Bold Opinions for Newspapers and New Media-