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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika In November, San Francisco set a new, sad record. We officially had the worst air quality in the world, even worse than Beijing. The cause was a wildfire up north, in the small town of Paradise. Although the place is a good three-hour drive north, in Butte County, wind and weather brought the bad air filled with soot particles all the way to San Francisco.
We lived for more than a week as if under a smog dome. The sun was never really visible, hidden behind a gray veil. It smelled like something was burning, and we kept all the windows tightly shut for the entire week. Ventilating or going outside was almost impossible, and we only did so if it was absolutely necessary. I have never longed for fresh air as much as I did during this week.
California has always been affected by wild fires, but they have never before occurred so frequently or destroyed so much landscape and settlements. There are many reasons for this, such as drier winters with little rain due to the changing climate. I still remember well when we moved to San Francisco at the end of 1996. It was pouring rain, and I immediately felt at home because it rained and rained and rained just like in northern Germany. Nowadays, it rains occasionally in the winter, but not enough to sufficiently soak the vegetation and transform the gray hills into green oases. And a state where it doesn't rain during the summer months needs a lot of winter rain and snow in the higher elevations to cope.
Furthermore, California is very densely populated by American standards, and human dwellings are often located way too close to, or even within, forested areas. The town of Paradise was practically built into a forest. A single spark was enough to start the inferno. It is not yet known with absolute certainty what caused the fire in Paradise, but it is suspected that a power line came loose due to the wind and began sparking.
Power lines in California typically are still installed above ground. With this, all it takes is a strong wind, and disaster is almost inevitable. This is because the power lines often hang close to trees and branches. Our utility provider, PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric), is now in such a predicament that many are speculating the company might go bankrupt due to the lawsuits filed and the potential fines and compensatory damages it may face. The last fire in Napa Valley a few years ago was already attributed to PG&E, and the resulting wave of lawsuits is keeping the courts busy.
Even in Paradise, some affected individuals have already sought lawyers, although it is still unclear what caused the fire. PG&E is now taking preventive measures by shutting off the power when the fire risk is too high. This preventive measure affected the Napa wine region in October, and small businesses had to cope with loss of power, inabilty to run their daily operations and loss of income. Calistoga, a place we regularly visit (Rundbrief 04/2006) lost a small café, the Calistoga Roastery, which we're always frequenting when we are visiting up there. It could no longer deal with financial losses of $3000 per day due to power outages. But it's not always the power lines that are to blame. Another fire in California started because a man was working on a metal fence post with a hammer in the middle of dried-out vegetation, causing sparks to fly.
Surprisingly, the fires are also worsening because they are being extinguished better and faster. Human intervention is indeed a factor, because as houses increasingly border nature, firefighters try to save the houses and do not simply let the fire burn. However, smaller fires are important for land clearing, burning bushes and grass that would otherwise fuel larger fires later. In California, the topic of controlled burns is also becoming more prevalent, as they also help prevent larger fires. Unfortunately, we will likely be experiencing poor air quality from fires in San Francisco going forward again and again, as the problem was ignored for decades, and solving it requires significant financial investments and time.
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