With more than 20 active fires small and very large tearing across the state, California Gov. Jerry Brown warned today that “nature is powerful, and we’re not on the side of nature,” and that devastating blazes are “the new normal.”
“We’re fighting nature with the amount of material we’re putting in the environment, and that material traps heat, and the heat fosters fires, and the fires keep burning,” he said.
The governor added that “since civilization emerged 10,000 years ago, we haven’t had this kind of heat condition, and it’s going to continue getting worse and that’s the way it is.”
“Some people don’t want to accept that, some just outright deny it,” Brown continued. “I don’t say it with any great joy here – we’re in for a very rough ride. It’s going to get expensive. It’s going to get dangerous, and we have to apply all our creativity to make the best of what is going to be an increasingly bad situation, not just for California, but for people all over America and all over the world.”
Brown said the state’s budget would also have to figure in the cost of increased fire fury in the upcoming years. “So far, this fire activity is a small part of our very large budget, but it is growing and it will continue to grow as we adapt to the changing weather,” he said.
The governor said that steps to combat global warming can still, eventually, “shift the weather back to where it historically was.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Years of mismanagement built up in California forests are feeding massive wildfires scorching the state, which is on track to experience its most destructive fire season ever.
Nearly 3,000 acres of state and local lands in California have been burned this year, about triple the size of the five-year average for this time of year. The amount outpaces 2017’s historic fire season in the state by about 70,000 acres, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The Little Hoover Commission (LHC), an independent California oversight agency, has been documenting forest mismanagement in the Golden State for decades. LHC describedCalifornia’s Timber Harvest Plan in 1994 as an “inadequate tool” for balancing environmental and economic needs.
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“Our forests are dramatically overcrowded,” LHC project manager Krystal Beckham told The Washington Examiner.
“There are some places where there may be four times as many trees as there should be,” Beckham said. “When you have trees that close together, they can’t get the water they need, so they are more susceptible to drought, insects, and disease. And when they start dying, they become a terrible fire threat.” – READ MORE
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