California’s beautiful stretches of forest and grassland are meant to burn. Fire is a natural part of the state’s diverse ecosystems, and native plants (including sequoias and redwoods) have adapted to withstand periodic fires. But California was never meant to burn the way it is now. Over time, these natural, regenerative wildfires have turned into highly destructive, deadly catastrophes without historical comparison, to the point that fire historian Stephen Pyne has named this era “the Pyrocene.”
Paradise, California, was leveled to the ground by fire moving at a speed of 80 football fields per minute. Sonoma County, still recovering from the 2017 Tubbs Fire, was not supposed to experience another catastrophe like the Kincade Fire so soon. California is not supposed to experience statewide tragedies every fall like the ones we’ve seen in the past few years.
Wildfires may seem like sudden accidents of nature, but these recent conflagrations are in some ways a more slow-moving disaster: the result of overlapping, systemic issues, including the historical suppression of indigenous fire management practices and accusations of corporate negligence of vital public resources, climate experts tell Teen Vogue. The staggering amount of deaths, destruction, and displacement from recent wildfires is so tragic, in part, because so many of the factors involved are caused by humans.
What exactly is driving these supercharged wildfires?
An investigation by the Wall Street Journal claimed that California’s largest investor-owned utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, knew that parts of its aging 18,500-mile transmission system were in desperate need of repair and a potential fire hazard, but that the company failed to act. The state found the utility giant responsible for the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in the California's history, and blamed for sparking more than 1,500 fires in total.
“PG&E has really struggled as a company with safety,” Michael Wara, a lawyer and Stanford University professor focused on climate and energy policy, tells Teen Vogue. But the utility is not solely responsible for the intensity of the fires. Says Wara, “Whether or not PG&E maintains its lines properly wouldn’t matter so much if layered on top of that wasn’t climate change.”
In an email to Teen Vogue, a PG&E spokesperson said the company “didn’t agree with or support” the Wall Street Journal’s findings, but added, “We have acknowledged that the devastation of the 2017 and 2018 wildfires made it clear that we must do more to combat the threat of wildfires and extreme weather while hardening our systems.” (The spokesperson has not yet responded to a follow-up email asking if there is a date set for when the system will be fully updated.)
The warming climate has dried out California’s landscape, turning it into a tinderbox. It’s no coincidence that, last year, vegetation was at record levels of dryness in the part of California where the most destructive fire in the state’s history was burning. One study showed that the burned areas consumed by California’s wildfires have increased by more than 400% between 1972 and 2018. This is due in part to climate change: rising temperatures, have an exponential impact when it comes to setting the stage for catastrophic wildfires, the researchers found, particularly in forests.