Nor is it a fantastical scenario like The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 that starts with a single crack in the Arctic ice shelf or earthquake tearing through Los Angeles, and results, a few weeks or years later, in the end of life on Earth as we know it. It’s not something that can simply be ignored by cable news or dismissed by sitting US senators in a Twitter joke. Los Angeles County will need to work especially hard in the near future to ensure that wealth does not drive a further wedge between its residents in the face of climate change.Climate change is already here. Some climate activists have begun to refer to this emerging phenomenon as an impending “disaster apartheid.” As climate change continues to exacerbate wildfires and natural disasters become more frequent, there is a worry that a divide will form between “common” middle- and lower-class individuals and the wealthy elite. At the same time, many wealthy celebrities returned to their mansions on the beach, next-door to the farmers, with their properties untouched by the flames. This disparity was evident during the most recent Thomas Fire in 2017, when farm-owners left their properties to seek safety and returned to find their crops - and ultimately their livelihoods - destroyed. While most individuals affected by fires were forced to flee their homes, wealthy individuals were able to wait out wildfires in luxury hotels while private firefighters worked to defend their properties from impending flames. As early as 2005, wealthy individuals have been able to sign up for Private Fire Protection Services, typically at a high cost. This increased risk of fire damage to residents’ homes has increased economic inequality in Los Angeles County, as wealth significantly enhances one’s possible response to wildfires. In 2018, the worst year of California wildfires on record, fires destroyed over 24,000 homes and buildings in the state. Additionally, as wildfires rapidly spread, citizens can be forced to evacuate and in the worst situations, can lose their properties and homes to the fires. Wildfires release toxic smoke into the air, leaving dangerous air quality conditions, ash, and debris in their wake. Residents of Los Angeles County have already experienced the severe impacts of these wildfires. Over the past 50 years, summertime forest fires in the state have increased in size by approximately 800%, and 11.2 million residents in California currently live in areas with elevated risk for wildfires. Of the 20 largest fires to ever occur in California, two of them occurred in the last 10 years in Los Angeles County: the Thomas Fire in 2017 and the Station Fire in 2009. Warmer average temperatures, dryer seasons, and changing seasonal time frames have increased the number of wildfires in Los Angeles County, as well as in the intensity of the flames. Moreover, fire suppression over the last several decades has only added to the dangerous levels of tinder that has been available, and will continue to be available, to burn. However, because the summer season has grown longer and hotter, and fall and winter rainfalls have decreased, flammable tinder has accumulated to high levels. This moisture dried out slowly through the summer season until it could be replenished the following fall. With a longer and wetter winter season, Los Angeles County’s vegetation would soak up moisture which could help prevent summertime wildfires. Los Angeles County’s fire season has already lengthened by approximately 75 days, and will likely increase in the future as well.
California’s dry and hot summers have always made the state more vulnerable to wildfires however, rising temperatures and lower levels of precipitation have made the fire seasons longer and more severe.
Warming temperatures also speed up evaporation, thus drying out the soil and parching the trees and vegetation.ĭrier and hotter summers have increased Los Angeles County’s drought risk, and by 2050 California’s risk of summertime drought is expected to almost triple. Higher annual temperatures lead to earlier snowpack melting, meaning that the winter season is shorter, there is less moisture in the soil during the dry season, and that the dry season is even longer. In addition to lower levels of rainfall, rising temperatures are reinforcing dryer and hotter summers in Los Angeles County.
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