I love the San Gabriels and the Angeles forest. But I don’t love the backwards fire suppression policies we’ve implemented there.
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People act like Mt. Wilson’s never been on fire before but ask indigenous peoples: it’s been smoldering way before it was named Mt. Wilson.
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The Los Angeles Times chronicled how Mt. Wilson burned in 1896. The wildfire started July 10 and ended in late October 20 that year.
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The next wildfire on Mt. Wilson was in 1896. It started July 30 and ended October 23. It burned that entire time. That’s natural here.
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There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Angeles Crest-area wildfires chronicled through early 1900s. Some of the fires lasted into December.
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But as white folks started building housing in the area, which is essentially a naturally-burning carpet bomb, we started suppressing fires.
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The entire area is chaparral, vegetation that has evolved to germinate with fire. In short, fire means survival for indigenous plants.
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For 100 years, local/state/federal policies try to prevent wildfires. Which makes as much sense as preventing earthquakes. You can’t do it.
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You can cut back chaparral. You can put out small fires. You can pray. And you’ll maybe avoid a big fire for 9 years. Watch out on year 10.
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Chaparral, also known as brush, smells wonderful! That’s because it’s full of oil. That oil attracts fire. Because that fire means survival.
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You can try and suppress that big fire all you want. But it’s inevitable. It *will* burn. All you’re doing is wasting valuable resources.
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And, because climate change is real, people who don’t understand LA ecology automatically blame it for this Mt. Wilson fire in October...
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Except it’s highly unlikely that it’s climate change that’s causing this fire. Try understanding LA and/or listen to indigenous folks.
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End of conversation
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They're getting worse
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Are they?
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Yeah sure
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We’ve had wildfires here from July-December for hundreds of years. So I want to understand what you mean when you say they’re worse now.
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Do some research
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