Fire, California, and Us

by Brianna Brockman

Wildfires in California have been a hot topic for many years across the country, but perhaps never as much so as they were following the fires in Los Angeles in January 2025. Killing more than two dozen people and destroying more than 15,000 homes and structures, all eyes remained glued to the firefighters on the frontlines who battled what some dubbed a “fire hurricane.” Record-low rainfall, a buildup of dry fuel, and 100 mph winds made the fires all but impossible to stop, creating a perfect storm of unfavorable circumstances that made the fires historically catastrophic.

Nevertheless, as a lifetime resident of California, if there is one thing every Californian knows, it is that California is almost always on fire. While the LA fires in January were historically destructive and lethal, they are far from the only record-breaking wildfire we have seen in the last decade. I personally bore witness to both the Southern California fires of 2017 and the Camp Fire in 2018, both of which were record-breaking at the time. While attending my first year of college in Los Angeles, UCLA students dealt with a loss of power and poor air quality during finals in December 2017, as 29 separate wildfires ignited across the region, some of which encroached closely on campus. I ultimately ended up evacuating with my roommates, fearing that a shift in wind direction would put us in danger, and watched the news closely as images of what could only be described as hellfire burned through the hills around Interstate 405. Those wildfires marked 2017 as the most destructive fire season on record in the state, but that record was soon broken in 2018, and again in 2020.

Not even a full year after my close brush with the Southern California wildfires, I again bore witness to another tragedy, this time in my home county of Butte, where the Camp Fire razed the historic Gold Rush town of Paradise. Caused by power lines igniting brush, winds pushed the Camp Fire towards Magalia, Concow, Butte Creek Canyon, and Paradise before engulfing the areas. With nowhere to run and all escape routes blocked by burned debris, residents of Paradise did their best to shelter in the center of town, alongside firefighters, in a cement lot, where they lay down and covered themselves with blankets, waiting for the fire to pass. Eighty-five people were killed, 18,000 structures were destroyed, and 50,000 people were displaced from their homes. Until recently, the Camp Fire was California’s most deadly fire on record, and my community is still recovering from the catastrophe to this day, as local insurance companies went bankrupt, leaving families with no money to rebuild and nowhere to go.

So while the media surrounding fires in California focuses on sensationalism, making it seem as though fires like January’s LA fires are something new and unprecedented, the reality for California residents is that they are not. Fires have been occurring in the state for centuries, and although their scale and damage have increased significantly in recent decades, understanding our past and history with California fires is essential before we can address the obstacles we face today.

(Image of 2017 Los Angeles fires around Interstate 405// Image from 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise)

FIRE HISTORY AND ECOLOGY

Our earliest recorded wildfire in California is the Santiago Canyon fire of 1889, which burned approximately 30,000 acres of land in Riverside, San Diego, and Orange Counties. However, according to soot deposits in soil and testimony from local indigenous tribes, it is estimated that, prior to Euro-American settlement in the 18th and 19th centuries, an astounding 5 million acres of land burned annually from both natural and cultural burns. Not even our most record-breaking fire seasons have reached these numbers, although 2020 comes close at 4.3 million acres.

So, how did these kinds of fires burn annually throughout the state without being as catastrophic as they are now? Well, there are two primary reasons. One is that fire is a natural part of California’s ecosystem, and our ecosystems evolved with the fires, rather than against them. Many native plant species, especially trees and shrubs, have evolved to be either fire-resistant with thick bark to protect their trunks or by shedding dead leaves and branches to avoid catching fire altogether. Some species require fire or smoke to germinate, as the heat allows their seed pods to open and release seeds, while others rely on fire to burn away dead and dried branches and stalks, making way for new growth in the spring. When fires would pass through our forests and valleys, typically caused by lightning, our ecosystem would embrace them, resist most major damage, and bounce back quickly.

Secondly, fires naturally work as a method to clear fuel. If multiple fires burn through a region every year, then with each subsequent fire, there is less fuel to burn, resulting in low-intensity blazes that remain close to the ground and are less damaging. However, the longer an area goes between fires, the more fuel accumulates, and when it burns, it burns hotter, faster, and more intensely than in areas with low fuel density.

The correlation between ecosystem health, fuel load, and wildfire did not go unnoticed by the indigenous tribes of the state, of course. Many Native American tribes in the region have participated in cultural burns for centuries, helping to kick-start the natural cycle of fire by lighting their own blazes to help plants regrow stronger and fuel loads remain low. According to Russel Attebery, the chairman of the Karuk tribe, “California is not just fire-adapted, it is fire dependent.” Their ceremonies honored the intrinsic ties between fire, community sustenance, forest health, and plant regeneration through a role of stewardship, rather than fear, and it allowed California tribes to coexist with wildfire for generations.

HISTORY OF SUPPRESSION AND MITIGATION

Despite the numerous benefits of natural fires on California lands, our history and culture are deeply rooted in suppression and fear, rather than in embracement. When settlers first arrived in the region, having traveled from parts of the world where fire was uncommon and considered dangerous, they immediately began operating on suppression tactics, even going so far as to ban Native people from partaking in cultural burns in an attempt to force their assimilation into settler culture. Until the 1930s, Indigenous Californians were shot for participating in burns, and until 2024, it was still classified as arson for tribes to light fires. We cannot ignore the correlation between fire suppression and settler colonialism.

However, the adaptation of suppression-focused tactics was not only focused on the assimilation of Indigenous Americans and Californians. In fact, fire suppression was a key approach throughout the entire country in our early history due to the fear of uncontrollable conflagrations. California’s first legislative session in 1850 prioritized mandating fire suppression, a sentiment that was echoed throughout the U.S. as settlers traveled further west into drier and harsher climates. In 1871, the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin resulted in the largest loss of life in American history due to wildfire, killing 1500 people, and significantly contributing to the philosophy and narrative that “fire = danger”, and that suppression should be the primary focus.

“Suppression at all costs” became the primary belief of most forest managers throughout the country by the 20th century. The U.S. Forest Service’s fire management policy by 1935 required that all wildfires be put out by 10 AM the morning after they began. The American government invested heavily in firefighting, constructing over 8,000 fire lookout towers by World War II, and even created its own special class of firefighters, known as smokejumpers, who parachuted out of planes to put out fires in remote areas. By the 1960s, the annual acreage of land burned by wildfires had been reduced by over 84%, from 30,000,000 acres to between 2,000,000 and 5,000,000 acres. The Forest Service also sponsored an ad campaign with the iconic character Smokey Bear, and the slogan “only you can prevent wildfires” in 1944, which crafted the narrative that wildfires were mostly manmade - despite only around 25% of wildfires being caused by people and not nature - and a danger to the public, rather than an integral part of American forest ecosystems. Despite many foresters and ecologists arguing in favor of natural fire as early as the 1920s, due to its essential role in clearing forest understories and dispersing nutrients for key species, complete fire suppression remained the only policy of the U.S. Forest Service until the late 1960s.

plete fire suppression remained the only policy of the U.S. Forest Service until the late 1960s.

It was not until ecologists noted in the early 1960s that California’s forests were not producing new giant sequoias, due to their life cycle requiring wildfire to grow, that suppression policies began to be questioned. The Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, created a special Advisory Board on Wildlife Management in 1962, and proceeded to release what is now referred to as the Leopold Report, which suggested managing national parks as ecosystems, which was followed by the Wilderness Act of 1964, which further encouraged the allowance of natural fires. In 1968, the National Park Service officially changed its policy to recognize wildfires as natural ecological processes. It encouraged allowing them to run their course as long as they could remain contained. The Forest Service followed suit with similar policy adjustments in the following decade, in 1974, but the aforementioned 10 AM policy remained in effect until 1978. To this day, differences in policy and approach persist among various federal and state organizations regarding wildfire management, stemming from differing priorities between ecological health, community safety, and infrastructure protection. As American populations have migrated further into rural areas, known as the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), the approach has become increasingly complex and challenging, as our lands, vegetation, and wildlife require fires to thrive. However, with human infrastructure deeply embedded in these fire-prone zones, public and firefighter safety must also be a priority.

(Image detailing the frequency of wildfires in the United States from 1983 to 2020)

MODERN DAY FIRES AND THE ISSUES WE FACE

Over the last five years, an average of 3,918 wildfire incidents have been reported to Cal Fire annually, with an average of 116,000 acres burned. As of July 14th, 2025, there have already been 4,195 wildfires in the state, burning 201,295 acres of land. However, when comparing these averages to the number of acres burned 10 years ago in 2015 - 8,283 wildfires with an estimated 880,899 acres burned - and 20 years ago in 2005 - where 7,162 wildfires burned 222,538 acres - we see that on average, the frequency of wildfires in the state over the last two decades seems to be decreasing (though, please note that this is a base-level statistical view of averages and not an in-depth analysis of fire trends over time). Despite this, wildfires seem to be threatening communities in the state more than ever before, and billions of dollars in property and infrastructure damage are sustained every year, especially in the Golden State. As communities move further into the WUI and away from city centers in the valley, it becomes harder to protect homes from fires that start right in our backyards, making comprehensive mitigation strategies and efforts even more paramount to ecological health and community safety alike.

As we can see from Cal Fire’s Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps, the sheer amount of land deemed at significant or severe risk for wildfire has increased significantly over the last few decades, although this can be partially attributed to our ever-expanding understanding of fire behavior and associated risks. However, the complexity of the approach towards fire mitigation is not a one-size-fits-all scenario, as the behaviors and risks associated with wildfire vary significantly among different regions. California is divided into 16 different climate zones, each with varying and distinct weather patterns, temperature and precipitation averages, native species and vegetation, and urban and rural communities. Los Angeles, for example, has a Mediterranean semi-arid climate bordering a desert region and the Pacific coast, while the region I work in, in Eastern Madera County, has a cold semi-arid climate, bordering the Sierra National Forests of oak woodland and mixed conifers, as well as the Central Californian Valley. The further north we go, the less arid (on average) the climate becomes. While Southern California and the Los Angeles area feature a lot of ground-level, dry shrubbery and coastal species, Eastern Madera County features dry grasses, tall oaks, and evergreen conifers. Moreover, as one continues north, the upper regions of the state are characterized by beautiful and striking redwood and fern forests. Each of these climates and ecosystems requires a different approach and understanding of what methods are most effective. While some regions might prioritize prescribed burns or fuel breaks, this may be infeasible for other regions, forcing them to hone in on other methods, such as home hardening. Some have easier access to manual fuel reduction through machinery or pesticides. In contrast, for others, it would cost millions of taxpayer dollars to airdrop the necessary machines to a rural mountain community.

These differences are further exacerbated by the divide between Local Responsibility Areas (LRAs), State Responsibility Areas (SRAs), and Federal Responsibility Areas (FRAs). Depending on where you live in the state, different agencies are responsible for mitigation and response to wildfires, resulting in an overall lack of cohesion among the broader efforts to make California more fire-safe. Cal Fire is responsible for 31 million acres of public and state land. Comparatively, 45.5 million acres are federally managed by the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service, which accounts for approximately 45% of the state’s total land. While the divide between responsibilities is not often so clear, and there are often intra-agency agreements to allow for the crossover of work, the differences in policies and approaches, as well as the divide between who is responsible for managing the land, make it ever more complex. Throw in the work of NGOs and Nonprofits, who often have to jump through significant hoops to receive grants and permission to conduct mitigation work on both state and federal lands, and we can see how quickly the waters become muddy and convoluted. With local communities having to go to great lengths to obtain permission to work on state and private lands, and state agencies having to seek permission and adhere to regulations for work on federal lands, the disconnect creates numerous roadblocks to any meaningful effort to manage our forests and better mitigate wildfires. Couple this with devastating grant cuts and mass layoffs of personnel in federal forest and land management agencies in early 2025, and California seems more at a disadvantage in gaining control of our fire risk than ever before.

As previously mentioned, the buildup of fuel is one of the most pressing concerns facing fire mitigation in the modern day, due to the centuries of suppression tactics and policies that preceded us. There are a variety of tools in the fire mitigation toolbox that we have honed over decades of research to help combat this issue, but each comes with its pros and cons. Prescribed fire is arguably one of the most effective approaches, as it works quickly, efficiently, and at a low cost. However, due to repeated droughts and our increasingly longer fire seasons driven by climate change, the window to burn without posing severe risks to communities is incredibly slim. There are only a couple of months out of the year when organizations are typically permitted to use prescribed fire, and this practice requires extensive planning and oversight from fire crews and specialists. However, if a single variable changes, whether it is too wet, too dry, too cold, too hot, or too windy by even a slight amount, the window to burn closes, and they must wait until the following season. Manual removal of fuel is also an option, and we have several approaches for that as well. Mechanical mastication and chipping are often the fastest and easiest methods, but gaining access to the necessary machines can be excessively expensive. Unless you have a place to take all the masticated fuel and wood chips, that fuel is left on the forest floor, and only lowers the fuel to the ground, not removes it entirely. Pesticides - better known as biocides - are effective at killing the fuel, but that only makes it dry and more flammable, meaning crews would manually need to return to remove it by hand, and there are numerous complaints to be had about biocides’ negative impact on the ecosystem and the dangers to watershed health. Manual labor crews equipped with chainsaws and clippers can be more strategic with their fuel clearing, but with millions of acres of land to cover, acquiring that large of a skilled workforce would be fiscally and feasibly impossible, not to mention many regions lack roads and trails and feature hazardous cliffs and steep mountain ranges, making access dangerous and incredibly difficult. It would also require these crews to return every 2-5 years to repeat the process, as vegetation regrows at varying speeds. Alternatively, organizations and agencies tend to use “fuel breaks” - or strips of land cleared of fuels to help direct and prevent fire spread - in strategic zones to help make access more accessible to fire crews, as well as help prevent further spread. However, this is also not foolproof, as embers traveling on the wind can travel for miles before landing in a new area and sparking spot fires that can further grow into full-blown conflagrations if not caught quickly.

Many communities also lack proper preparation and planning in the event of wildfires. Especially in mountainous communities, roads for escape can be easily blocked by falling debris or entirely overtaken by the fires, as we saw was the case in the Camp Fire in Paradise, leaving communities trapped. Local officials often establish Safety Zones to provide residents with a designated location to shelter in place in the event that they cannot escape. However, for many communities, these plans have not been reviewed or updated in years and may contain critical flaws or outdated information. In Eastern Madera County, we recently discovered that the community no longer has access to the animal evacuation zone, a place that, for years, has been the residents’ haven for taking their livestock and pets in the event of a fire. In some smaller communities in Southern California, their towns do not even have livestock evacuation areas, and community members are forced to coordinate amongst themselves in the face of threatening fires to get trailers to people’s homes and help evacuate their horses. Especially in California, which has a robust and diverse agricultural economy, livestock and agricultural asset protection are often overlooked.

Even when proper safety plans are in place for communities threatened by wildfire, communicating those plans to residents creates another obstacle. While the details can often be found in their local region’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), these documents are lengthy and often contain an overwhelming amount of information that the average resident must sift through to find what they are looking for. Social media is an excellent option for communicating about events and safety information, but many people are unaware of these accounts, and older generations tend not to use this form of media as frequently or consistently. Especially in mountainous WUI communities, consistent access to the internet also poses an issue, as many rely on Wi-Fi for their connection, which can be lost if power lines are affected by the fires. While some community members take fire safety and prevention very seriously, others may not even know where to find emergency resource information should they need it. Bridging this gap in information and communication is critical for local agencies, NGOs, and nonprofits to ensure that everyone is as prepared and informed as possible, so that residents can protect themselves, their families, and their homes.

California also faces a critical lack of support and recovery resources. As more and more residents face catastrophic losses, we are finding ourselves to be ill-equipped to handle the sheer amount of mental health, physical health, and financial health issues that residents affected by wildfire face. With FEMA funding cut proposals, local communities are having to strategize their own ways to support their neighbors who find themselves without a home or a backup plan following a fire. Post-disaster housing poses a consistent issue, as even with the support of federal agencies like FEMA, they only support short-term shelters. Local hotels and AirBnBs become booked for months following disasters, often providing an expensive alternative for housing that many cannot afford for very long. With the shortage of mental and medical health providers and now the looming potential for rural hospitals to close following more federal funding cuts, hospitals are already overworked and stretched thin on resources, a burden that’s only exacerbated following natural disasters like wildfire, leaving many to be burdened with their losses and injuries with little access to support.

Lastly, a lack of insurance coverage has become an increasingly significant problem throughout the state. With damages caused by wildfire becoming too financially burdensome for providers to cover, these companies are instead opting to stop providing the coverage altogether, leaving many without financial backing to support rebuilding efforts following devastation. Those that remain and still offer coverage for wildfires and extended living expenses are increasing their rates drastically, a financial burden carried by families that often cannot afford the best and most comprehensive coverage as a result. In some cases, insurance companies have gone bankrupt following wildfires, as seen in the case of Merced Property & Casualty Co. following the Camp Fire. With high-intensity fires causing millions, sometimes even billions, in damages to covered properties, some insurance providers lack the funds to support recovery and are forced to liquidate themselves due to the severe demand. While this does not intrinsically mean that policy holders will not get any support should this happen to them, as many are also covered under the California Insurance Guarantee Association, the CIGA does have maximum benefit limitations that may not match what was supposed to be covered by residents’ providers, leaving families with little option other than to leave their home communities due to being unable to afford the long, expensive rebuilding process.

SO, WHAT CAN WE DO?

The most important aspect of addressing fire mitigation in the modern era is to adopt a comprehensive approach. While policies of the past focused solely on suppression and prevention, we have come to understand fire in a much broader scope in recent decades, especially as an ecological process that is necessary for our forests and ecosystems. Stopping fires entirely is not an option and has only resulted in the issues we face today with fuel load. Therefore, Californians must learn to live with it and coexist. We must be flexible and understand the complexities and nuances faced in each community; we cannot focus solely on the “before” aspect of wildfires. While mitigation and preparation are crucial, we must also ensure we are adequately prepared for response and evacuation, as well as short and long-term recovery efforts. Wildfire, in essence, is a cycle, and we must understand and be ready for all phases of this cycle, not just the “before” piece of it.

Each community is like a puzzle piece of a broader picture of living with fire in California. Every location will require different strategies in fuel management, communication with residents, policies, and plans. Anyone working in the field must be flexible, able to shift focus and change goals, should funding and grants fall through, or situations change unexpectedly. Effective communication between agencies and organizations is also crucial, as a lack of it results in constant overlap in efforts, gaps, and oversights. Sharing data and maps among organizations, strategies, and information needs to become commonplace because wildfires know no manmade boundaries and can cross between communities, counties, and state lines at any time. Collaboration is key to a comprehensive and robust approach.

We must also put more effort into supporting residents in their efforts to protect their homes via home-hardening practices. Many are not up to date with the best zoning practices, or lack the capability, either physically or financially, to update their homes with fire-resistant roofing, tree and debris removal, or installing ember-resistant vent covers and dual-pane windows. Grant incentives to help homeowners afford contractors or the materials for such work can lift a significant burden from residents’ shoulders, allowing them to better protect their homes and their neighbors. Communicating with these residents to help them assess their risk and supplying resources to help them get up to code is essential, and working with organizations like Firewise USA is a huge help that should be further supported.

Further expanding on this, community involvement is also a key piece of this puzzle, and must be approached carefully and with proper consideration. Residents do not want to be finger-wagged at for not being up to date; this only pushes communities further apart and feels condescending rather than helpful. We must be able to listen to their concerns, answer their questions, and offer understanding and support for their situations. Encouraging community involvement is similar to any other grassroots movement; the more people get involved and excited about fire mitigation in their communities, the more others will become interested and informed. Encouraging a culture of acceptance of fire as a natural part of life, rather than a philosophy of fear and danger, will help normalize the reality of fire as an inevitable and necessary part of California’s landscape. After centuries of Smokey the Bear ads and fearful rhetoric surrounding wildfires, it will take considerable effort to shift our culture in a direction that accepts and welcomes fire as a helpful neighbor, rather than condemning it as a largely man-made disaster that must be stopped at all costs.

The more we encourage and support community involvement, the greater and more effective our efforts in advocacy for better legislation and funding will be, which is the last key piece of the puzzle. As mentioned earlier, a lack of communication between organizations and agencies is already an issue, extending all the way up to state and federal legislation and funding decisions. The lack of voices from those who specialize in the field in higher branches makes it difficult for legislators to truly understand what our communities need in terms of support, especially in terms of funding. While they do often have the best intentions in trying to make mitigation efforts easier and more accessible, especially for NGOs and Nonprofits, these same efforts often lack comprehensive thought or feature glaring gaps in approach that could be mended simply by a proper channel of communication between the people doing the work on the ground, and the people making the policies higher up. Communities must rally together and lobby for greater cohesion among efforts and increased funding support, so that we do not constantly find ourselves in situations like the LA fires or the Camp Fire. Mitigation will be an expensive endeavor, but it is far cheaper than the billions of dollars in damages wildfires can do to our communities and infrastructure.

CONCLUSION

We can never truly predict what tomorrow will look like. We do not know how drastically our climate may change, or where technologies will lead us over the next several decades, or what we may learn tomorrow about wildfires and other natural disasters. However, we do know, at this point, what our best approach to mitigation is, given our current knowledge and understanding. Through effective communication, robust funding, and comprehensive approaches, we can lead ourselves to a future where our fuel load is well-managed, our communities are prepared, and fires are no longer high-intensity conflagrations that devastate us. It will take significant effort to counteract the mistakes of the last couple of centuries of fire prevention, but with every prescribed burn, every home hardened, and every project funded, we get closer to our goals. By decreasing our inherent fire risk, we can attract insurers, reduce costs, and residents will no longer have to live in fear throughout the fire season, wondering if tomorrow they will see a fire peaking over the horizon towards their homes. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, so all we can do is prepare and educate ourselves to the best of our abilities today, and hope to see a brighter future for all Californians, one where fire is a welcomed and beloved part of our landscape, rather than a devastating consequence of mismanagement and misinformation. We are already taking big steps towards proper understanding and approach, and everyday, our future looks brighter and healthier. Tomorrow, we will take ever grander steps, and with grit, hard work, and enthusiasm, we will shape a world for our children and grandchildren that is safer, healthier, and more fire resilient.

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