Problem – Reaction- Solution To Burning of Forest Town
Rebuilding After Dixie Fire in 2021: LA Times Article Series Response
Written By Elaine Buxton
Two writers from LA Times newspaper, Erika Smith and Anita Chabria, visited Greenville, California that burned in the million-acre Dixie Wildfire in 2021. Dixie is the second largest fire in California history. They wrote a 4-part article questioning whether or not the residents should receive any state or federal disaster assistance with re-building their homes and infrastructure in this Sierra Nevada region. Before the fire, Greenville was a charming and historic Gold Rush era town of about 800 people, but now is surrounded by the charred remains of the conifer forest with only a few people still living there and struggling to start over. The catastrophic Dixie fire was sparked by PG&E utility equipment, one of just many the past few years, in forests already weakened from drought.
The journalists say they have covered many of the recent California wildfires, seeing the initial hope for rebuilding in fire victims turn to disappointment when that becomes impossible. Everyone agrees that how California is managing the forests is dangerous and unsustainable and that something must change. Without both forest management and climate improvements, forests can and will burn more than once. The journalists concluded that helping the residents rebuild in Greenville would be indulging them in a useless and wasteful way, claiming that a move from the rural North to a Southern urban area would be a more rational choice. This situation is a good example of the problem-reaction-solution paradigm.
People are drawn to and love living in these forested regions, where they are close to and interact with nature. Many belong to families who work for the US Forest Service or timber production industry. Others are of cultural and tribal ancestry, whose traditions care for the forest, fish and wildlife. For others, the forests, mountains, and natural waterways serve as recreational areas for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, relaxation or star-gazing. There they escape the noise, smog, 24-hour lights, crowding and crime of urban life. It can be a good place to raise a family and live in a small close-knit community that cares for one another. People who live in rural communities learn to meet challenges differently than urbanites, who have more access to municipal services.
Problem
California state officials and meteorologists claim that the forests will continue to burn and convert to shrub lands due to climate change with drought and warming. They claim it will become increasingly difficult to build homes and businesses resistant to flames. Natural resource scientists acknowledge that California is near the tipping point in which the forests cannot be saved. This will have drastic consequences for all Californians, since the forests provide 60 percent of quality water by absorbing precipitation and purifying the air through carbon absorption. Instead, the burning of trees has emitted more carbon than all industry and vehicles combined. Forests in California generally have not been treated with restoration measures following wildfires, becoming barren, hot regions with erosion, less snowpack, less wildlife habitat and contamination of water ways. The landscapes where trees of all the same type and age were planted too close together so burn even hotter the next time around. Cultural, small prescribed burning was stopped by the forestry services 100 years ago, allowing thick vegetation to grow that added fuel to wildfires. This is a huge problem with 100 years of mismanagement that is difficult and costly to fix.
Blame for the problem attributed to logging corporations, privately owned utilities, governmental neglect, lack of funding or environmental extremism is debatable but the fact remains that treatment remedies have gone far, far too slowly. CalFire and the US Forest Service are still struggling to reach a goal of treating one million acres a year that was set two years ago. In the meantime, forests, towns, water supply, air quality, soil health, the economy and people’s lives continue to be degraded.
Reaction
Disappointingly, the LA Times journalists resorted to labeling the residents of Greenville who dream of rebuilding as extremists, gamblers, hypocrites and insane. They wrote that taxpayers from urban areas do not want to support any rebuilding in Greenville, which, according to their calculations, could cost up to $ 1 billion. Rural residents who lose their homes should just move to safer, urban, paved over areas, regardless of the lack of affordability and severe housing shortage and homelessness. They acknowledged urban areas, too, can experience disasters, but not wildfires. Maybe they forgot about the Santa Ana Wind fires every fall starting in the foothills of southern California burning towards the beaches. The rural residents are putting firefighters and CalFire rescue helicopters at risk too, according to this article.
The journalists elaborated on the expense of upgrading infrastructure, such as underground powerlines, prescribed burning, mechanical thinning and soil cleaning from post fire pollution and erosion. They don’t recognize these things need to be done, whether or not there are any local towns or local people to form the treatment workforce. They just don’t want to be “stuck with the bills” for disaster relief or forest restoration. They are not aware of the relationship of healthy forests to healthy climate and natural resources such as water. They clearly do not comprehend where the food and water for city dwellers comes from. They certainly don’t want to “subsidize people who live in higher-risk rural towns, even if those people don’t have the means to live somewhere safer.”
The article writers believe that “…most of their rural towns wouldn’t even exist without massive public investment from liberal cities. And yet, if these same residents are forced to take on more financial responsibility for the risk of rural living, there will almost certainly be pushback.” And the people who love living in rural wildland view wildfires as a challenge to overcome, but “It’s a belief so widespread, so divorced from the terrifying reality of climate change, that the rest of us in California can’t keep ignoring it. Doing so is simply costing too many lives and too much money, and wasting too much time.” Their words of caring for a loving Greenville couple at the end of the series does not appear genuine in light of their harsh words and advocacy to prevent any state assistance.
The writers quoted Jonathan Kusel, founder and executive director of the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment about the situation, who said, “There’s a lot of folks who are trying to push people out of rural areas or rural communities and they’re saying they shouldn’t be there.” The rural residents know that they and Greenville are not highly valued or liked by urbanites from Los Angles, San Francisco, or Sacramento. Indeed the politics, as well as worldview, are different. Much of this is related to ecosystem, agriculture and cultural devastation in the north by over exporting water from the north to the south for thirsty arid cities at the expense of people, fish, and wildlife. But the residents are resilient and plan to restore their livelihoods anyway, constructing a sawmill in partnership with Sierra Institute to turn the burned trees into useful lumber. They are so committed to restoring Greenville, that 300 displaced residents went back to celebrate their local Gold Diggers Day holiday with food, music and dancing this summer.
Solution
Smith and Chabria clearly intended to smash the hopes and dreams of rural residents who lose their homes and businesses to wildfire. They also clearly have little respect or compassion for them. They appear ignorant of the benefits rural residents provide to grow food and maintain watersheds and forests. The hostility and bias they feel towards these people is striking in their writing. They suggest no reasonable solutions, recommending that wildfire victims move to cities where there is no housing, or just disappear.
However, I found this 4-part article educational, in that it highlighted the hatred and disrespect some or many southern California Democrat liberals feel towards the more Republican northern residents of California who have long felt betrayed. Unfortunately, majority rule of urban population centers tends to ignore the needs and opinions of smaller groups, to the detriment of the overall solutions. This kind of hostility will never end in a good resolution for the challenges of climate change, water supplies or anything else. It goes along with federal rhetoric of politicians who label all Republicans as terrorists. All trust is broken by calling those with different perspectives kooks, extremists and insane. However, there is still possibly a small opportunity remaining to bring the divisions out into the open in an attempt to develop some degree of discussion on the issues. Small window for discussion only, because so little civil discourse exists, as exemplified in these article parts.
The writers are probably unaware that the California Departments of Water, Forestry and Air all have identified that one of the main barriers to treating the forests is lack of a trained and knowledgeable labor force to do so. Also, that commercial uses of the wood need to be incorporated, rather than just burning all the excess vegetation. The forest labor force was drastically reduced when the logging industry experienced cutbacks and sawmills closed. The people in rural areas can become that labor force again, restimulating their economy as well. The labor force will need to live in the forested regions. More foresters will be needed as well to assess the priorities and effects of treatment. Native Americans are also good resources and will continue to live in rural regions; they are not just going to go away.
The writers were also deficient in some logic when designating “safe” places to live. They acknowledge that 25% of Californians live in high-risk fire zones; so do they realistically expect 25 percent of the population to move? And yet, wildfires are not the only type of disasters; recall drought, earthquakes, floods, rising sea levels, tornadoes, hurricanes. Cities have higher amounts of crime and pollution, including homicides and traffic accidents, so are they really safer? If urbanites don’t want to assist wildfire victims, does that translate into not expecting any assistance for an earthquake that only impacts their own region?
An unstated, underlying issue, but likely the elephant in the room, regards water exports from the northern counties and Sierra Nevada to southern cities that have devastated the ecosystems and farming in the Delta and Central Valley. The long California Water War between the North and the South has again been accelerated by Governor Newsom, Department of Water Resources, and State Water Project plan to build another 39-foot, 40 mile-long tunnel to export more water to the South, known as the Delta Conveyance Project. Reading of the Draft Environmental Report exposes the minimization and poor mitigation for significant negative impacts to humans, animals, fish and ecosystems by the state. There are no clear benefits for life north of Sacramento, highlighting the greed and lack of fairness by the southern majority Democrats. In a similar manner, Mono Lake and Owens Valley were devastated by construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. History repeats itself for those who forget. And while open communication may be a start, trust and collaboration cannot occur when one side totally disrespects the needs of the other side in a conflict.
State documents are filled with staff and stakeholders commenting on the deficiency of trust and cooperation between state agencies and federal departments when searching for solutions. The complex network of agencies involved in every project adds to slowdowns of effective action. Betrayals and broken promises are not easily forgotten. Unless all lives matter, no sustainable resolution will be achieved. These articles about Greenville are a good example of the problem-reaction-solution paradigm gone wrong, while highlighting the urgent need for new approaches.