The Environmental Tall of Non-Native Plants in California’s Fires
by Luca Falconieri
The huge wildfires in California started with the opening of the new year were, in many ways, a wake-up call for both the US and the rest of the world. What was one of Los Angeles’ wealthiest and most exclusive areas turned into ashes, showing us that nature ultimately does not make distinctions of class and income. The extent of natural disasters, enhanced by the global climate crisis, is to be feared even by the wealthiest. Just one week from the LA fires, however, everything seems to be gone with the wind, with the Trump inauguration ominously overshadowing all that has happened under the US’s domestic courtain. Trump’s shadow is cast on the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico, on trade wars and sanctions. “Make Europe Great Again” becomes Elon Musk’s new slogan, as he interviews the German far-right AfD leader Alice Weidel on his own platform in front of millions of spectators.
Such is the paradox of populist politics: so much time and energy invested in crafting an image that is close to the common people, only to find themselves projecting their ambitions and objectives on distant countries, sometimes even planets. A paradox reflected in the US obsession over foreign policy issues, with Trump deflecting public opinion on controversial themes such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America”, annexing Canada and Greenland, or even further away from National boundaries, colonizing Mars. The eyes of oligarchs and billionaires like Musk or Trump did not indulge on the Palisades fires for more than a week, what was needed to make it political by attacking the Democrat administration of California.
If there is one thing that is clear to environmental scientists and climate activists alike, is that the climate crisis is global, and that it will take so much more than just a switch in administrations to avoid the catastrophic events caused by the last 100 years of unregulated urban development. And it is hard to even ask ourselves whether Climate Change caused the Palisades fire, when the new US administration is adamant on denying the very existence of the phenomenon of Climate Change, with Trump immediately pulling out from the 2015 Paris Agreements on his first day of presidency.
The impact of the last years’ extreme weather affected the proportions of the fires by a great margin. The interested area had seen intense rains from a particularly strong El Niño current last years, producing an overabundance of bushes and vegetation. With the steep variations in weather and an arid summer, those overly abundant bushes dried up, becoming the perfect fuel to the fires, in conjunction with the particularly strong Santa Ana winds blowing in the area.
The LA fires are not just an opportunity to point at the increasingly evident effects that climate change has had on weather cycles. They also remind us, with the tragedy of the loss of someone’s home, how humans are ultimately living and part of a natural world, organically shaping it around them. More often than not, we approach the environment as “free space” to be given form according to our own will and needs, without considering its limitations, its very own nature. Such is the case with the introduction of the eucalyptus trees in the LA area, which played a role in the intensity and spreading of the fires.
The eucalyptus trees were originally introduced to California from Australia for economic reasons, solving a shortage of wood in the area in the 19th century, and were planted by the millions as a business opportunity. Enterpreneurs were quickly disilluded with the low quality of eucalyptus wood and eventually abandoned huge eucalyptus plantations in California and around LA. However, these trees are highly flammable due to their dry and thin bark, the high oil content of their leaves, and the amount of fine fuels in their wood. Their light and curling bark, when transported by the winds, can spread a fire ten of meters away from its origin. The fact that a non-native tree species became so widespread to be regarded as one of the characteristics of the Californian landscape prompts some reflections. Native species, naturally more resistant to fire and arid conditions, would have done a better job at containing the fires, rather than spreading them. Could an approach that was more respectful of the native natural environment have prevented this tragedy?
It is hard to determine how much the eucalyptus trees, the poor urban planning and management and the extreme weather conditions individually affected the fires. However, all these factors are only different expressions of the common, more general issue of humans failing to pursue a respectful and organic relationship with the natural environment surrounding them. Until the realization that we are but a part of the natural world becomes part of our common sense, and is reflected in our policies and behaviour, phenomena like the LA fires will be hard, if not impossible, to eradicate.
