A Burning America: U.S. West Wildfires and Their Consequences
By Richard F Sevilla
National News Writer
As America faces political and societal turmoil amidst the end of 2020, it faces a growing national ecological threat. While the hearts and passions of Americans burn out on the streets for social and racial justice, America itself burns in the face of unprecedented wildfires.
Since the start of the year, wildfires have engulfed nearly 7,000,000 acres of American land. While these lands mostly consist of natural scenery and dried forestry, it has nonetheless issued the evacuation of nearly 500,000 people and even taken the lives of more than 35 innocent people and first-responder firefighters. Not to mention the nearly $2.4 billion use of resources, wildfires are gradually becoming an overlooked issue that requires our national attention Wildfires consist of two primary components: ignition and fuel. While ignition could be the cause of natural occurrences, such as lightning strikes, research shows that nearly 80% of wildfires in the last 20 years have been jumpstarted by human action, and this number continues to dangerously grow. Cattau, a Ph.D. researcher in wildfires at Colorado, concludes, “increasing anthropogenic (human) ignitions…are contributing to a ‘new normal’ of fire activity across continental states.” One of the most notorious examples is the gender reveal party that sparked the behemoth of the El Dorado Fire. This fire, which started from a pyrotechnic device back on Sept. 5th, had just recently claimed the life of firefighter Charles Morton on Sept. 17th. A lack of regard for environmental safety and human life has led to stories like this, where seemingly innocent human actions of gender reveal parties and fireworks have created hellish landscapes for firefighters to constantly put their lives against the line for.
However, ignition through human actions is only half the battle. With increasingly longer and drier seasons, forests and other organic matter are becoming a primary fuel source in sustaining and spreading these wildfires. Increased temperatures, decreased precipitation, and drought conditions have all been identified as factors in increasing the occurrences of wildfires, and studies show that all these factors are the immediate consequences of climate change. Both ignition and fuel in tandem disastrously combine to create a colossal multitude of never-ending terror and scorched earth.
While we can keep trying to apply band-aid solutions of sending 30,000 fire-fighters to valiantly risk their lives and extinguish these wildfires, nothing will fundamentally change unless we begin to look at the internal problems of climate change. With risks to public health, natural environments, and federal/state budgets, never has American seen such an intense demand towards environmentalism, clean up, and recovery plans. While America continues to face various systemic and social issues, a physical perceived threat in the form of a blazing inferno is just along the horizon, and it will continue to take the lives of many unless we take action towards taking better care of our environment.
Contact Richard at richard.sevilla@student.shu.edu