There are few things that trigger more visceral anxiety than uncontrolled forest fires. Images of massive flames and burned husks of homes activate a primitive part of our brain. Smoke hanging in the air leads us to want to either run away or sink into hopelessness.
In our area of the Sierra Foothills near Nevada City, smoke from fires hundreds of miles away drifts in regularly depending on the winds. During fire season, a beautiful day can morph into apocalyptic haze, upending outdoor plans from boating to biking to hiking.
We all know that California is getting hotter, drier, and more fire-prone each year. Conversations are increasingly turning to where people can go to be safe. Even hardy, resilient types wonder if it’s time to move.
But ultimately, while all of the above is a natural reaction, it’s possible to do a rational analysis of what faces us and design a pathway to not only survive but thrive in the coming time by setting the right expectations of what is coming and how best to navigate it.
There are opportunities and even blessings to be found in the new climate patterns and by focusing on them, we alleviate debilitating emotions and make peace with the new realities.
It all begins with having a sense of control. Our minds dislike losing control, which means there is little about the unpredictability of fire season that we instinctively like. Lack of control leads us to feel unsafe, which in turn triggers anxiety and fight-or-flight reactions that undermine our health and well-being.
Part of how we regain some sense of control is to understand what lies before us and plan accordingly. Then we are not surprised and are better able to adapt to the circumstances.
First, on the big picture level, let’s understand what is happening. Before 1800, California burned. A lot. Big burns in our state are part of how our ecosystem evolved, with many species of plants and trees actually dependent on fire for pollination and renewal.
The best estimates are that around 4.4 million acres of California burned on AVERAGE every year, which almost exactly parallels our epic, record-setting season of 2020. Without valiant fire fighters and planes to put them out, lightning strikes would spark burns that would not extinguish for months. In the last 100 years, a policy of fire suppression led to the accumulation of much more fuel as well as denser clustering of trees (lending to more intense crown fires).
Even with all that suppression, check out this map of California showing the perimeters of all the burns of the last 100 years. Despite a lot of heroic firefighting, a lot of the state has burned one or more times.
As long as our climate was a bit cooler and wetter, our fire fighters could outmaneuver Mother Nature most but not all of the time. We were largely able to prevent fires from hitting settled areas with extensive damage. However, as human-led climate change drives us towards hotter and drier temperatures we have reached a point where at least some fires cannot be stopped with human force and the best we can do is curb their impact on settled areas. I see the Dixie Fire of 2021 as the clearest turning point yet: the biggest single-source fire in California’s history, it will likely burn until winter rains and consume over 1 million acres in addition to whole towns.
All from one spark. With already over 6600 incidents this year, if a single spark can lead to 1 million burned acres, the idea that we can stop them all becomes increasingly implausible. Despite massive crews (6000 firefighters) and intervention, we have been losing the Dixie fire battle as the fire behaves in erratic and unpredictable ways.
Instead of an aberration, we need to see Dixie as part of the new normal. Accepting uncontrollable fires runs counter to our nature. But when we see this not just as a present-day problem but a reversion to historical norms of annual burns that thinned forest and renewed ecosystems, it changes our psychology a bit. Rather than seeing it solely as a human-caused tragedy (which it partly is), it’s also the re-activation of a natural pattern.
And we are having to learn to live with it.
Here is the good news: our 100 year fire debt is finite. The amount of accumulated burnable fuel in California is limited. In 2020, about 4.4% of the total acreage in California burned and 2021 is tracking towards a similar number, with over 1.6M acres burned already, still early in the season. 4.4 million acres is somewhere in the range of 10% of the state’s burnable terrain (minus deserts, water, agriculture areas, and cities).
A decade of Big Burns will, basically consume much of our backlogged fuel.
Even if we keep getting hotter and drier (as is projected in even the best climate change scenarios), though, we will hit an apex of annual burning and then begin to decline towards a new normal with thinner forest cover and smaller, episodic burns that are less out of control because they run into more recent burn zones.
That is, in fact, what a detailed July 2021 study concludes we will face: a decade-long burst followed by gradual decline in severity. That alone is a cause for some relief. Rather than preparing for an ever-escalating fire regime that threatens our children and grandchildren in more and more ominous ways, we’ve likely already made it through 1.5 years of the Decade of Big Burns. 15% of the way through the peak (or so).
This is important because difficulties are more bearable when they are finite and time-limited. We’re likely close to the peak of the worst of it, which is comforting.
In fact, there is a lot of scientific support that we need more regular fires (particularly controlled burns) than fewer in the American West. Here’s an interesting reflection by a fire scientist in Nature, including this quote:
There is a broad scientific consensus that ecosystems in western North America need more fires, not fewer. Smarter options include building homes that can resist embers, conducting controlled burns, improving evacuations and planning communities with homes enclosed by natural fire buffers such as parks, golf courses and vineyards. In the southeastern United States, acceptance of prescribed burns is higher, and there are few fire disasters.
So if there’s an inevitability and perhaps even desirability for ecosystems to have more fires but contain their damage, what are the real risks to us during this decade? I find it helpful to be objective and rational about it first, then come up with strategies to handle the emotions.
There are five basic categories of risk to us:
Potential of dying in a fire - while the scariest scenario, this risk is actually very, very small, around 1% of the risk of losing our life in a car accident during the same period. In 2020, our biggest year of fire, there were 31 lives lost in fires versus 3723 on the roads of California. Historically, our 20 most deadly fires in the last century have led to 290 deaths. In the next decade, we’re probably 100x more likely, on average, to die in a car than in a fire in California. And most of us don’t get worked up about car rides.
Losing our home in a fire - this risk is not unsubstantial for those of us who live in very high risk fire zones but also not as extreme as we might think. My guess is that the 1.5 million homes in high fire risk zones have somewhere in the 1-10% chance of being lost in the Decade of Big Fire (2020-2030). We each have a lot we can do to drive our odds lower through preparation, clearing underbrush and hardening our home defenses. 2020 saw the loss of 17,000 structures, probably a bit more than half of which were homes. If that ends up as typical and we don’t improve our defenses that much, we could well end up losing 100K homes of 1.5M in the highest risk zones, which means any individual home in the highest risk zone might have a 5-7% chance of burning in this decade. But even if that happens and we’re well-prepared, we can rebuild and move on with our lives. Making peace with this possibility helps to reduce anxiety. We know one friend who lost his home to fire and it caused him to double down on his transformational practices and birth a whole new phase of his career and success. So a lot depends on how we navigate it.
Health effects from excess smoke - this is perhaps the most difficult to address but again, there’s a lot we can do to mitigate and I’ll discuss more below
Psychological effects from excess fear and stress - If we give in to free-floating fire anxiety or depression, it can have debilitating effects on our well-being. The antidote here is to understand the new normal, assess the risks rationally, mitigate as much as we can and to build resilient practices and life patterns. The truth is that with intentional practices we can reset our nervous system to find safety and peace even in the midst of collective crises and as we learn to do that, we have an invaluable skill for our daily life.
Disruptions to daily life due to evacuations or fire remediation efforts. This can includes some financial hassles such as losing insurance or having to forego travel plans. These risks can be a pain but not show-stoppers.
Basically, I think what we need to do is have a reasonable and accurate assessment of these five areas and how best to address them AND to keep our mind focused on what I think of as the Big Opportunity.
Which is this: we now have the opportunity to redo human civilization in a fundamental way, switching from a resource-intensive carbon economy that heats up our planet to one that is based on renewable energy that is sustainable for the long haul. Big Fires are exteremely motivating and graphic reminders of the perils that humanity faces and can spur major commitments and systemic changes. As human beings, we are far better at dealing with immediate, palpable threats than long-term systemic ones.
For Californians, Big Fire is forcing us to address the long-term threat to the planet that climate change poses. Because of our economic, technological and cultural influence, major changes in California can influence the course of the rest of human civilization very quickly.
In short, our annual climate emergency reminder, served up by Big Fire, can provoke the systemic changes necessary to move towards a carbon neutral world much faster, which will actually lead to a far more liveable and resilient future for our kids and grandkids. Without the fires, we perhaps wouldn’t drive the technological and cultural changes fast enough. The switch to electric cars? Each fire season, we move up the timelines. The switch to resilient, renewable power grids? Each year prods faster change.
From that perspective, we can find a kind of gratitude that Big Fire may just push us to change fast enough and, by doing so, help to save the rest of the world (and all the species and ecosystems that entails)
That may be a bit melodramatic but I think it’s essentially true. This is our evolve-or-perish decade and we need California’s engine of innovation at the forefront rather than dawdling. Big Fire is pushing us to decarbonize our economy at Silicon-Valley speed.
As only one example, the Cool Cities Challenge is selecting the first three cities this year to go for a climate moonshot, with a citywide carbon neutral goal set for 2030. 25 more cities will follow in the next year’s competition. Governor Newsom’s climate team are now looking at accelerating the entire state’s carbon neutral goal by a decade to 2035. As these initiatives unfold, California will be at the forefront of the movement to flip our infrastructure from dirty to clean power and to decarbonize our economy in a way that paves the way for less wealthy areas of the planet to follow.
So that’s the silver lining in this. If we choose to run away to another state or country that seems safer temporarily, we may miss out on contributing to an epochal moment for humanity, I believe. For me, that gives the “big why” to stay put in our beautiful forest and learn to be resilient.
Now back to addressing the risks in a thoughtful way. I’m not going to repeat all the advice from fire authorities on how to prepare your home but on the most basic level we need to:
Make sure we are on all warning systems
Have go bags prepared for four months out of the year
Do all the fire mitigation and home-hardening things we can afford
Have good quality masks for when we do need to be outside in high AQI days
After doing all that, we’re mostly done on the logistical level. Then we have to address the psychological factors by:
Reminding ourselves that we are 100x more likely to die in a car accident (at least)
Telling ourselves that we’re at least 95% likely, even in a very high risk area, to keep our home intact by 2030 and we can improve our odds. I believe we’ll get better each year at lowering the threat to structures.
Engage in meditation, visualization or other practices that calm any worries and channel that energy in creative direction. Focusing on opportunities makes the challenge more meangingful
Which mainly brings us to smoke. This is actually going to be the biggest challenge for the vast majority of us but again, part of what helps is to not fear an ever-escalating doom but design our lives around the issue.
The Decade of Big Fire will have longer fire seasons that often stretch four months or more. And what we probably need to plan for is 10 to 40 days out of that time, on average, being one of three things:
Indoor time - If we accept that even while it SHOULD be warm, sunny, and fun outside, we’re going to have many days of fire season where we will be inside, depending on wind patterns, there’s less disappointment, loss and frustration. We often embrace this in the winter so it’s a matter of recalibrating. Growing up in Minnesota, there were generally about 3 weeks of winter where it was below zero and too cold for winter sports, which was fine. Being indoors with air filtration will, for the vast majority, be fine for our health.
Outdoor time with masks - we’ve gotten used to wearing masks during the pandemic and it’s perfectly acceptable to wear them outside and mitigate a lot of smoke issues. We can still go on hikes or outdoor excursions on medium-smoke days (in the 100-150 AQI range) and if we’re not concerned with the apocalyptic look, there are 100% airtight and filtered masks that can have us out safely in any AQI for about $33 (here’s one).
Travel to lower-smoke areas - whether this is a family camping trip to the coast or a planned trip to visit relatives in the Midwest or a bigger trip to another country, August through October will be a good time to schedule some time away from high smoke zones. Given the extent of smoky areas in the West, our choices may be limited as they were in 2020 during the blitz of lightning-sparked fires that also engulfed other states. Just as people plan a mid-winter tropical vacation to break up the cold season, planning an annual mid-fire season trip to somewhere that is likely to become more common.
A few other creative things to do:
Have specific projects that you’ve wanted to make progress on that are designated for smoke days. Have you wanted to write a book but haven’t carved out the time? Have you wanted to start painting? Or learning how to cook? Or even binge-watch a series on Netflix? When smoke keeps you indoors, it becomes an opportunity to make progress rather than pine away for a typical summer day. The key is to channel your energy towards something creative rather than complaining or distressing over the perceived loss. It’s simply the new normal and if we dwell on the negative less and make lemons out of lemonade, we stay healthier and more resilient.
Designate indoor days as growth days, investing in your development through online education, classes, or trainings. They become “school” days where you are preparing yourself for the next level of your leadership and service. You could design particular pathways for free education or invest in trainings that build professional skills or develop more tools for psychological and spiritual growth (our company has many options).
Comunity Service days - who in your community or friendship network is most in need of support? What if you made yourself more available to them during indoor days, taking the time to deepen your connections and help others to blossom into their potential?
Energy retrofitting days - What if you more specifically took Smoke Days as a time to look at how you can reduce your energy use and transition to more renewable alternatives? We all have ways that we can cut down on our energy use and by pairing the effects of more smoke with personal solutions, we become the change we’re looking for.
Create a reciprocal arrangement with someone that you know that lives in a very different area of the state to have somewhere you can go if things get bad in your area for a time. Make sure you can work remotely (if possible with your work) or handle the basics of your life from a different area. We often host people in our forested home in Nevada City and they, in turn, are happy to have us come for a visit at other times. Building this kind of geographic resiliency deepens community, which is another opportunity. I can see matchmaking services cropping up for those without direct friendship connections.
While emotionally it can be hard to embrace smoky days, why not be playful and take it on as a challenge? What does your #AwesomeSmokeDay look like? In our family, we’ve mixed dance parties with art projects with family yoga and longer bath time. We’ve read more stories and done some silly Karaoke. If you shift your reference frame for a day from it being a “bad” day because of smoke to one in which you have the opportunity to get creative indoors, it becomes a time of increased intimacy and connection rather than a deprivation.
At the end of the day, here’s what traversing the Decade of Big Fire in California is going to mean for most of us:
a small but not insignificant risk of losing your home if you live in a very high fire danger area and a truly tiny risk if you do not
10-40 days of higher levels of smoke, particularly in the Central Valley and towards the mountains but there will be some throughout the state. If you hit a particular bad season from local fires remind yourself that it will likely lessen things in future seasons since that area takes time to rejuvenate.
A time or two or three when you need to be evacuated for a few days to a week. Planning where you’ll go can ease anxiety about that
Some redesign of your annual rhythm to maximize time out of the smoky zones during the height of the season.
If you can live with that and see the opportunity to really transform our society’s whole pattern from an unsustainable one to a sustainable one while expanding your flexiblity to change plans, move locations, or work on indoor projects just as you might in the winter months, the decade of Big Fire doesn’t have to diminish your love of California, which is, in my mind, the greatest place in the world to live.
We are still blessed with so much natural beauty and we will continue to be. We’ll need to be more flexible, resilient and adaptive in this new era. We’ll need to learn how to better assuage our fears and preserve our health. We’ll need to find an inner oasis in our homes that sustains us even when skies look grim.
Instead of spending as much times indoors during the rainy winters, we can also embrace more outdoor activities in the winter. Great rain (or snow) gear makes for enjoyable winter hikes. Embracing more winter sports gives us more clear skies days to enjoy the natural beauty around us.
At the end of the Decade of Big Fire, we will have traversed the worst of burning off the excess fuel of the last 100 years. Fires will become smaller and less damaging. As a society, we’ll be leaner, more ecologically aware and more resilient. We’ll be living in a society with a lot more electric cars, solar roofs, micro-grids, and wind farms. We’ll actually enjoy a quieter and less smoggy future (as we move to an all-electric future things will get quieter and cleaner for most of the year). We’ll have stronger bonds of community as we work with neighbors on fire safety to build resilience.
Some people will have moved away but there’s no guarantees that wherever they move will be better. Hurricanes, for instance, are not likely to have such a refractory period as the fires will. They are likely to keep increasing in size and intensity. Floods may keep getting worse in other areas. Climate change is going to affect almost everywhere in unpleasant ways.
Yes our state will be drier and we’ll have to adapt to that. We’re likely to have more and more periods of excessive heat to contend with each year as well.
But if we stay and make changes, we will be part of the solution for our world and even if the dividends don’t all pay off in a decade in the form of a cooler climate (they won’t), I think we’ll ultimately be on the right path, leading the world towards a beautiful future.