The Thomas Fire

I knew when I witnessed the Thomas Fire burn 281,893 acres in 2017 that such destruction would be forgotten in the years to come. It almost every year California breaks its own wildfire record (Serna, 2019). Though the fire was the "biggest", what did that really mean aside from acreage? Not just for the people displaced, property damaged, or landscape changed, but for California and beyond. I want to explore these subjects through my own story about the Thomas fire and what that means for future forest fires.

After I graduated in 2017 I volunteered through the Student Conservation Association to be on a Fuels Reduction Crew for 5 months based in Los Padres National Forest. I had never witnessed a wildfire, let alone knew what a fuels reduction crew did. The goal, I discovered, was to thin out small dense stands of trees so that foresters could go in later and administer prescribed burns: small controlled forest fires. This helps preserve mature stands of trees and makes the forest safer and more controlled during a wildfire.

Ironically, our project was hindered by the emergence of the Thomas fire in December. Even though we were based in the northern part of the national forest, the blaze created unsafe conditions to use power tools in any area of the forest. At it's height the fire's border was only 15 miles as the crow flies from us. It truly made an impact on me witnessing how so many peoples' lives can be affected and displaced by the annually-increasing ferocity of wildfires.

Despite the fact that a majority of the fires' path was through undeveloped land, two fatalities were reported and insurance claims amounted to $1.3 billion (Serna, 2017). The fire consumed about 1,000 structures (Andone, 2018), many of which were located in different neighborhoods around Ventura. In this swipe map below, take note especially of the last zoomed pan of Vista Del Mar Hospital where many homes were visibily burned down. Click the numbers in the left hand corner to pan through different scenes.

Before the fire was officially contained on January 12th, 2018 (Ventura County Fire Dept. n.d.), heavy rains came through the area on January 9th. The rain along with the land burned away of any vegetation caused massive mudslides north of Montecito (Serna, 2019). The mudslides were the most devastating effects of the fire, resulting in 21 deaths. The loss of homes and life, along with the clean-up efforts of all the mud resulted in another cost of 400 million dollars.

The map above depicts the burned areas (in grey) along with the flow risk areas (in red). Soil after a fire becomes less porous and unable to retain and absorb water (Karklis, L., et. al, 2018). It only took an inch of rain in fifteen minutes to trigger these mudslides. The steep drop from the Santa Ynez Mountain range into the Montecito Valley created the perfect conditions for this event.

Since this event, the Ranch fire in northern California superseded Thomas as the largest wildfire in California history. As climate change progresses, this trend will most likely continue. After all, research shows that the annual 1 degree Celsius temperature increase may result in an increase of the median burn area per year by 600 percent in some western US forests (Center for Climate Change and Energy Solutions, 2019).

Here I decided to overlay the map, "USA Population Pressure" on top of the "Wildfire Hazard Potential" map. The areas of population that are growing are designated by the blue and green dots, while the areas of high wildfire risk are highlighted by the red areas.

Even though I did not do any formal analysis on this map, I wanted to show that at a cursory glance, it is evident that population pressure is high on the borders of high risk fire areas. This means that as the risk of fire increases, so does the risk to human lives and health. Steps must be taken by local governments and communities to curb the risk of fire damage.

Studies suggest that 84 percent of all wildfires are caused by people, not lightning or other natural sources (NASA, 2017). Ways this can be solved are:

• Discouraging residential developments near fire-prone forests through smart zoning rules.

• Increasing the space between structures and nearby trees and brush, and clearing space between neighboring houses.

• Gas and electric companies improving infrastructure and safety, especially during drought conditions.

(Center for Climate Change and Energy Solutions, 2019).

The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) toolkit by FEMA is a good resource to help you be prepared in case of a wildfire. They provide everything from insurance information to the application for Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW). This is a federally funded program to help communities plan for wildfires. One success story happened in Sisters, Oregon. The community council applied for the CPAW program and upon selection, a coordinated group of foresters, land-use planners, economists and wildfire risk modelers came up with plans to reduce wildfire danger (Weber, 2017).

Even for communities that are not chosen by CPAW to be part of the program, they still can make an effort to do education and outreach in those communities. If you want to know more visit:  https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui_toolkit/ 

Not only does local government play a big role in keeping areas safe, and aware of fire hazards, but the community does as well. If you live in an area that is fire prone, get involved! Even if you don't, that doesn't mean its not relevant to you. As we learned fires increase with climate change, and it becomes a cycle. The more trees burned, the more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, thus it is everyone's problem! It is important that the US Forest Service receives grant funding to do fuel thinning projects like the one I was assigned on. So, donate or write a letter to your local congressmen about your concern on climate change policy.

1. Ready Santa Barbara County. (2018). Debris Flow Risk Map. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from  https://sbcoem.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2dfd558de56f45158b4f67ef678a24e3 
2. Karklis, L., Meko, T., Tierney, L., & Steckelberg, A. (2018, January 11). Mapping the destruction of the Montecito mudslides. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/california-mudslides/ 
3. NASA. (2017, March 7). People Cause Most U.S. Wildfires. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89757/people-cause-most-us-wildfires 
4. Center for Climate Change and Energy Solutions. (2019, July 12). Wildfires and Climate Change | Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from  https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change/ 
5. Stephenson, J., & Calcarone, G. (1999). Southern California Mountains and Foothills Assessment (PSW-GTR-172). Retrieved from  https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr172/psw_gtr172.pdf 
6. Serna, J. (2019, March 13). Southern California Edison power lines sparked deadly Thomas fire, investigators find. Retrieved September 28, 2019, from  https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-thomas-fire-edison-cause-20190313-story.html 
7. Andone, D. (2018, June 2). The largest wildfire in California’s modern history is finally out, more than 6 months after it started. Retrieved from  https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/02/us/thomas-fire-officially-out/index.html 
8. VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT. (n.d.). VCFD DETERMINES CAUSE OF THE THOMAS FIRE. Retrieved from  https://vcfd.org/news/335-vcfd-determines-cause-of-the-thomas-fire 
9. Weber, L. (2017, June 17). The rise of wildfire-resilient communities. Retrieved October 3, 2019, from  https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-the-rise-of-wildfire-resilient-communities 
10. US Fire Administration. (n.d.). Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) toolkit. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from  https://www.usfa.fema.gov/wui_toolkit/ 
11. NOAA. (2019). Monthly Summaries Map (Precipitation). Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/maps/clim/summaries/monthly

1. CVaillancourt_EsriMedia. (2018, September 5). US Historical Fire Perimeters from 2000 - 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=9c407d9f46624e98aa4fca1520a3a8f7
2. esri_Lanscape. (2015, February 15). USA Drought Intensity 2000 - Present. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=cee4e59ffa134e2189456d8aa80d8a86’
3. UOdocent. (2013, December 27). USA Population Pressure. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=2f216287099742ffa08cc4222b388abc
4. US Forest Service. (2010, July 8). Wildfire Hazard Potential. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=fc0ccb504be142b59eb16a7ef44669a3
5. US Forest Service. (2012, September 12). Administrative Forest Boundaries. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=ec3a61c6cd814342a60d5fa75b605c8a