Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. I'm Kyle Rizdahl. Tuesday, 14 January, back at work, thankfully. Back in my house, that whole deal. Yeah, it was a little hairy. Anyway, so we're going to talk about the L.A. Fires, and more importantly, the L.A. Fires and all the rest of us, because maybe it's not coming quite the way it did here, but it's all coming for all of us.
Right. The it coming for all of us is climate change. I mean, these fires obviously have taken lives, homes, businesses, whole communities. This is going to... likely be one of the costliest disasters ever in the United States. So we want to know more about the role that climate change is playing in these disasters, how communities can adapt to increasing wildfire risk, and also how we can
make the recovery process work better for more people. So for that, Crystal Colden is here to make us smart. She's a director of the Fire Resilience Center at the University of California, Merced, and a former wildland firefighter. Welcome to the show, Crystal. Thanks for having me. So as somebody who has fought wildfires, what stands out to you about some of the conditions that these firefighters in LA are up against?
So what's really challenging for firefighters in these particular fires is that, first of all, it's January. And while it's not unheard of to have wildfires in January. in Southern California, we normally don't see them of this magnitude and specifically the types of really strong, hot, dry Santa Ana winds that fueled these fires this last year.
week and the extremely dry condition of the fuel that produced just the incredible fire behavior that challenged firefighters. And what we saw, of course, was that You just can't control the fire when it is burning this intensely and with the types of flames we saw and the extreme ember showers that just blew everywhere.
Also, the speed of this whole thing, right, Crystal? I mean, it happened so fast. It did. And to be fair, things usually happen really fast like this when we're talking about the Santa Ana winds. Almost every historic Santa Ana wind fire that we have in Southern California, it blows up fast. It blows up really fast. And it sort of...
The speed of it just surprises everybody. But that's actually pretty normal with these types of wins. And of course, it makes it really challenging to try and respond when you've got... over 100,000 people evacuating and you're trying to bring in first responders from all over the Western U.S. to help out.
You know, you said something there that this is normal and it does feel like it's becoming increasingly normal. And you pointed out on Blue Sky that the areas of Southern California that are currently on fire. have burned before. What's different this time? And if we know that these areas have burned before, how has that shaped what people do about living there?
Yeah, so this is a place that has had a lot of fire, particularly since European settlement, right? There's not a lot of lightning fires in this region. It's basically all human fires, especially this time of year. There's no lightning. fires this time of year and what has changed over the last century of course is that we've got
a lot of people living in these areas. And you don't just build a house, of course, you have landscaping all around your house. All of that landscaping is fuel under the right conditions. And then we've got really... different types of land use in this area. I mean, it used to be mostly big ranches that were utilized for all types of grazing animals that kept down that fuel load. the last several decades.
those ranches have turned into large areas of conservation, national recreation area, state park, several smaller conservancy areas. So that... has really broken up this landscape in ways that make it really difficult to sort of come in and try and manage it for wildfire. And it makes it really challenging when we look at Okay, how can we try and live here, right? What do we do differently? And the answer is that, well, there's a lot of things we have to do.
And it's really complex to try and do them when you have so many different types of land ownership and land use. And all of that private land is controlled by the people who own it.
Well, so keep going with that for a minute. There are many things we have to do. Like what? Give me like your top three. You're in charge. Governor Newsom comes to you and says, we're going to rebuild L.A. and we're going to take care of this and it's never going to happen again. What are the three things you're going to do? Yeah. So first of all, you know, there will be people who will rebuild. This is a magical, magical place. And people have lived there for millennia. Indigenous people.
actually lived there pretty comfortably long before Europeans showed up. And they worried about fire too, but they used fire as a tool to try and manage that landscape and keep the fuel load down. And today we call that... prescribed fire. And it's really tough to use prescribed fire in Southern California because there's so many houses, there's fire danger year round now. So instead, we focus on the things that we can control a lot better. And that's the fuel, right?
The fuel is the houses, the landscaping and the land around it. Right. And that fuel can be controlled by building houses that are less flammable. A lot of the houses that we've seen burned. And the last week, they're old, right? They're 40, 50, up to 100 years old. And so they were built under really old building codes. Today's building codes, particularly in California, we have the most stringent wildfire.
building codes in the country. And if all the new houses are built to those codes, they will be much more resistant to embers in the next fire. We also know that defensible space around houses from the... right next to the perimeter of the house where we don't want to have anything flammable at all, what CAL FIRE, our state fire agency, calls zone zero, out to 30 or 100 feet away from the house. If we really reduce the amount...
of flammable material there. Plant, the types of plants that won't easily burn, like succulents or cacti, those things don't burn very well, right? And if we trim trees back, I mean, it's little stuff. It's a lot of little stuff. stuff um so the first two things are really the house and the landscaping right and then across the larger landscape it's recognizing that uh one person doing this at their house
isn't going to stem the problem. It has to be a collective effort. So there's really a need for everybody in the neighborhood to get together and work together to do this and to maintain it over time. time. And we have tools for doing that. There's a lot of different organizations like Fire Safe Councils or the National Firewise Program that allow communities to work together and say, hey, we're going to do this around all.
our houses, and we're going to work with some of these public lands nearby to reduce the fuel loads there. That will go a long, long way in ensuring that we don't have more disasters of this magnitude. Often after hurricanes or major floods, you hear people saying, why do you continue to build back in places where you know this is going to happen again? Is that the right lens for fires as well?
So fire is really different than other types of disasters and particularly climate change driven disasters in that fire depends on fuel and we can control that. fuel. I often think about the fact that Los Angeles... Right now we're thinking of it as a fire risk city, but really the biggest risk in Los Angeles is earthquakes. It is a city built on one of the major fault lines in America, as are many of.
our Western cities. And no one is suggesting that we just stop living in Los Angeles because it's on a fault line and we've had some historic earthquakes that killed a lot of people and caused enormous amounts of damage. Rather... We said, okay, engineering can solve this problem. And we have engineered our cities that sit on earthquake faults to substantially withstand that type of danger. Fire is the sort of thing that...
It can happen everywhere. When people say, oh, well, we shouldn't live in flood zones. Those are pretty well-defined, right? They've got a very specific area that they cover. But fire can happen everywhere. anywhere where there is fuel to burn. And that's pretty much everywhere. So the goal in my mind is not to say, oh, well, people shouldn't just live in these places, particularly because we have a pretty big housing crisis in California and elsewhere in the West, but rather to say, all right.
How can we build these structures not to burn? And how can we control the fuels around them to really further minimize that risk? And importantly, allow fire to burn through. as a six-inch high flame rolling slowly across the grass instead of as this consuming inferno. Okay, so look, now what do we do? Right?
You know, it's and look, it's people who don't live in Los Angeles who are seeing the video and who are hearing people talk about this are saying, oh, my God, Los Angeles is burning. And really, Los Angeles is so big that the whole city is not burning. Chunks of it have had some damage. And it's been tragic. But there comes a time where you have to figure out where we go from here. And I guess the question is, where do we go from here? Yeah. So after every major disaster, we look at...
where we're at with our codes, our building codes. We look where we're at with our landscaping codes, things like that, right? And we ask ourselves, okay, how can we change this? And so there will be some evaluation of what we might need to do differently in some of the codes. And there's also the piece where we say, all right. How do we better engage and educate?
the people who live in these areas, because so many people that live in Los Angeles, they didn't grow up there. They come from other parts of the country. And maybe they didn't fully understand what the dangers were, the reality. were of wildfire for this place. And so we have an opportunity right now to say, okay, how can we educate everybody that yeah, we want to actually rebuild this place to be more fire resistant.
And that there's not a single silver bullet solution to this problem, but it's a lot of little things that have to happen. And my group has been studying wildfire recovery for the last several years. is that it takes a long time. So, you know, this sort of... question that people are asking about, all right, well, how fast will people be able to rebuild in these areas? The answer is it's going to take a long time. And the way that we sort of facilitate that process to happen.
and hopefully equitably, is to work together as communities to work with all of the different state and federal programs that help facilitate that. And to really think about, okay, what do we want Los Angeles to look like? How do we build back in a way that is affordable for people who have just lost everything? And how do we recognize that there is...
there's a pretty big spectrum of incomes, you know, and a lot of what the news has looked at is sort of, yeah, okay, well, all these people in Hollywood living up by Malibu, right? But... There are large sections of Altadena and other areas that were burned where we're talking about middle class communities that...
have the potential to be really marginalized during the rebuilding process and planning and sort of really carefully considering, okay, how can we build affordable housing? Maybe there's higher density housing in some places. Maybe there are places where we can.
can build some of these neighborhoods or rebuild some of these neighborhoods a little bit differently so that they're not... laid out in a way that make it as difficult to evacuate, that make it as difficult to defend for firefighters, and that will be more defensible, right? When the next fire comes, because the reality is there will be a next fire. We cannot prevent wildfires in this part of the country. And the key is to figure out how we can make it so that these wildfires aren't disasters.
I'm here in Washington, DC, and I don't have to tell you some of the rhetoric that's already been kicked around about... disaster aid funding for California, and you have some Republican members of Congress saying that there need to be strings attached. Do you think that our current political dynamic is going to make this recovery harder? You know, the challenge with...
disasters of any type is that they aren't partisan. They happen in red counties and states. They happen in blue counties and states. You know, and I don't have to remind all the listeners. in the southeast that much of the area that was destroyed by the hurricanes in the fall, that was red counties. Trying to politicize disasters just ignores the fact that we are all prone to the next potential disaster. All it takes is just...
the right conditions. And really, as a country, we're much stronger if we recognize that disaster funding. It should not be partisan in any way, shape or form, and that it should support restoring communities across the entire country. No strings attached. Less than them will let you go. And cost of living aside. Would you move to Los Angeles right now?
You know, I have lived in fire prone places for most of my adult life. And I currently live up in Central California, which is less of a fire prone place. But I've lived in. the fire prone Sierra Nevada. I've lived in fire prone Idaho. And I would live in Southern California in part because As, you know, as I described, I think that we can control the risk. When I've lived in some of the most fire prone places, I've said to myself, that's okay. I can control.
this risk level because I know that my house is fortified against fire. There are no entries for embers to burn the whole thing down. I know that my landscaping is completely fire resistant. When we lived in the country, I would do prescribed burns on my property. And that really reduces the fire risk. And that is the sort of thing that I always think to myself, you know.
I can't control earthquakes I can't control hurricanes I can't control tornadoes there are places in the country that I would not live because You just have no control over the outcomes of those events. But fire, if we control our flammability of our structures and we control our fuels, we can absolutely... take the reins on what that outcome looks like. And that to me is all the difference.
Crystal Colden is the director of the Fire Resilience Center up at the University of California, Merced. She is also a former wildland firefighter. Crystal, thanks for your time and your expertise. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure. You know, it's so fascinating.
What natural disasters you can become habituated to. Like the idea of a tornado doesn't scare me that much because I grew up in Missouri and I know what to do. But like fire, I'm just like, oh, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I should say lots of folks were really worried about you, Kai. I've been getting messages on Blue Sky, on Instagram, on Discord. Folks were really worried about you the last couple of weeks. Well, it was it was. So, first of all, let me just say and.
And I mean this. My family and I are among the very, very lucky ones. If you go a mile and a half east from my house, it's a whole different story. And those are the people we all ought to be really worried about. I do appreciate the concern, though. You know, this, it, yeah, I don't know. It's been a wild week. Been a wild week.
All right. Well, if you live in Los Angeles, we'd love to hear how you're doing as well. And to our non-LA listeners, you know, how are you navigating the risk of natural disasters in your area? You know, are you planning for the future? What are you thinking about? You can let us know at 508-827-6278, also known as 508-UBSMART. We'll be right back.
Hey, it's Kai. My minivan and I, as I've said on the radio, have logged a lot of miles with Marketplace. Luckily, it's still running, you know, pretty well. But if your car doesn't drive as well as it used to, listen up. It can still help drive Marketplace. When you donate your old car or truck, we'll use the proceeds to support the great programs you hear every day. Start your vehicle donation at marketplace.org slash vehicle.
All right, straight into the mailbag we go. We're going to skip the news fix on Tuesdays in 2025. What do we got? Hi, Kimber Kai or Kiberly. This is Bernadette from Atlanta, Georgia. Dan from Boulder, Colorado. I have a bunch of questions. I love the show and y'all are awesome and nerd it out. So yesterday, Kristen and I were talking about the benefits of throwing more parties, a conversation I'm sure you would have loved.
And I was sharing some advice about how to make entertaining at home less stressful. And we got this message. Hi, this is Susanna from Cathedral City, California. I'm so happy you guys are back, and thank you for letting us know that Kai is doing okay. I attend my brother's annual crawfish boil. And he does this great thing at the end of it where he has all of his guests help with cleanup and just simply states, this will take all of us 20 minutes or it'll take me four hours.
and they chip in, and we all get it cleaned up, and that's wonderful. There you go. I like that idea, except for usually by the end of the party, I just want people out of my house and I'd rather clean up by myself over the next two days. just be alone again. So that doesn't always work for me. I hear that. All right. As we do on Tuesdays, we end with a make me smart question. What is something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about?
A lot of people are trying to stick to New Year's resolutions or, you know, create some new habits this time of year. So this week's answer might be just what you need. Comes to us from Brad Stuhlberg. He's the author of Master of Change, How to Excel When Everything is Changing, Including You. I used to think that you had to be really motivated to get going. You had to be inspired. You had to be hyped up. What I learned where I was wrong is that it's actually the other way around.
Oftentimes, we've got to get going to give ourselves a chance at feeling good. Motivation follows action. This is particularly important when we're undergoing periods of change, when we need to call upon our resilience. Oftentimes, the world around us can feel chaotic and overwhelming and motivation can be lacking. What we've got to do is drop the bar from needing to feel motivated and instead just get started and let the motivation follow.
Yeah. Wow. That's really interesting. Just do something and then you can figure it out. That's not terrible. Just do something. Got it. Just do something. It's like the new Nike slogan, I guess. Just do something. Feel free to use that, those of you out there who are marketers. Just do something. Something. All right. Well, what's something you thought that you knew, but you later found out you were wrong about? Leave us a voice message at 508-827-6278, also known as 508. You be smart.
Courtney Bergseeker produces this podcast. Charlton Thorpe engineered it today. Jake Cherry is going to mix it down later on. Ben Tallade and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodner is director of podcast. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital. And Marketplace's vice president and general manager is... Hi, this is Claudia from Nicholas, California.
I try to listen to Marketplace daily on the radio or via podcast. I'm also a huge fan of Make Me Smart with Kai and Kimberly. In a world where the financial news seems very thin, and sometimes biased. I appreciate the depth and breadth of both Marketplace and Make Me Smart. Join me in supporting Make Me Smart with a gift today. Go to marketplace.org. slash give smart. Thank you.