Fires continue to burn, warnings of eerie winds are frequent, and residents in devastated areas search for belongings and pets in the rubble.
Ultimately, decisions will have to be made by residents, elected officials, developers, and planners about what happens to this burnt land.
The people who lived and lost in the communities destroyed by these fires, the most destructive fires in Los Angeles County history, will eventually be permanently resettled elsewhere or will find themselves unable to survive. You will decide whether to rebuild your old home or neighborhood. Some people have lived in the Palisades for decades, while others haven’t lived there long at all. In Altadena, several generations of families lived in the homes. Whatever decisions residents make, the rest of us, including state, county, and city leaders, must be careful not to displace them again by preventing them from rebuilding.
But given the series of devastating fires in the past few decades leading up to this one, we now understand that we need to adjust the way we live and build. It should be.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll never rebuild in areas affected by wildfires. That means creating firebreaks or buffer zones to provide some sort of barrier between development and undeveloped land. That means buildings with more fire-resistant materials and fire-resistant vents.
Every horrific urban fire caused by the California wildfires has taught cities something about how to better build and lay out communities.
Building codes have changed over the years and newer homes are becoming more fire resistant. But that doesn’t solve everything.
“The building industry has repeatedly said, ‘You can definitely build safely in this area,'” says J.P., director of policy at the Center for Biological Diversity, who has worked to support legislation regulating building in high-fire hazard areas. Rose says. “The government will not admit that these codes are not good enough just because a building built to the code has burned down. It refuses to check whether these really work, and it refuses to make them Putting your full trust in it is literally playing with fire.”
One thing that hasn’t changed much is where Californians want to live. For decades, they have perched on hillsides, hidden in valleys, and spread across foothills. And it’s not necessarily about the view. People live in communities they know, perhaps where they grew up, near family and friends, or near their workplaces.
Reconstruction in fire-prone areas can include moving power lines underground, widening roads to make it easier to get in and out of neighborhoods in the event of a fire, and installing external sprinklers on the roofs of homes. This may be necessary. Few of these ideas are cheap, but none of them are destructive fires.
In the coming days, many questions will be asked about whether there were enough firefighters at the time of the blaze and whether enough firefighters were proactively dispatched when storm warnings predicted danger in the dry county. There will be a debate.
“The death and destruction from recent wildfires should serve as a sufficient reminder that California cannot continue to spread into dangerous wildfire areas. refuses to act. What will it take?” the editorial board wrote more than five years ago.
But if we want to continue to live here and build more housing, which we already desperately needed long before thousands of fire victims became homeless. We must build with an environment in mind that is sure to become more difficult.
We must continue to think and act as neighbors, including by supporting those who want to rebuild. There are many problems ahead. Returning residents also need to be part of the solution.
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