We Didn’t Start the Fire. Or Did We?
Reflective Piece by Blanca Peto
Setting sun, shrouded by smoke (Picture by Blanca Peto)
In the summer of 2019, it was estimated that more than 8,000 of Australia’s endearing icon, the koala, were killed. With record-breaking drought and magnified bushfires, 80% of koala’s habitat was destroyed. An accumulation of habitat loss, prolonged drought and deforestation now places the once endangered species to “functionally extinct” (Nace, 2019). This means that koala populations have become so limited that they no longer contribute to their ecosystem and populations are so low that long-term viability of the species is limited. The koala’s dependency of eucalyptus trees is critical. Eating up to 2 pounds of leaves per day, and sometimes on only one species of tree, due to their sophisticated and specialized stomach microbes, limits the koala’s food source, and for many koalas, the future means living with starvation.
In the last 3 weeks of November (2019), there were more than 60 bushfires in New South Wales (NSW), burning more than 1 million hectares. In comparison, Venice, which also happened to be drowning, is only 41,400 hectares of land. The fires that burned across the entire state of New South Wales burned more than 20 “Venices.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, the particles from the smoke from the fires reached South America, traveling more than 10,000 kilometers (for us Americans, that’s more than 6000 miles). Although South America’s air quality wasn’t affected, the smoke was a demonstration of the intensity of the fires (Vaughan, 2019). And the kicker? It wasn’t even summer, when the fires usually reached their peak.
Sydney, where I had been studying abroad for 7 weeks prior, was shrouded in smoke for days. The sun, a bright, red circle was reminiscent of a piece of metal a blacksmith pounded and hammered. The sky choked in smoke, made it not only highly dangerous to go outside, but smothered my daily life and activities, from visiting sites around Sydney, to my work life.
I had been interning at WIRES (Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service) a wildlife refuge center in Brookvale, a northern suburb of Sydney. For the first 7 weeks, I had a relatively stress-free, but educational experience. I was the Assistant Volunteer Coordinator, responsible for mostly membership questions about the system (“I can’t seem to log in, can you reset my password?” or “I just moved, can you change my address in the system?”) I had gotten pretty good at answering those questions; a quick “Sure! No problem, I’ll take care of that for you” usually fixed the problem. But everything changed when the fires started. The relatively quiet hubbub of the office with the sprinkling of laughter quickly changed to relentless phone calls, questions being thrown across the room, and a heightened sense of urgency. My usual questions changed overnight to “Please, I see all the animals affected by the fires, I want to help, what do I need to do to help?” and an endless stream of people asking to donate everything, from pillows, towels, carrying crates, space in houses, anything. Although the amount of support and donations were tremendous, and incredibly generous, processing them was another matter. It was incredibly difficult to pick up the phone; to hear a woman crying on the other end because she couldn’t stand seeing the animals with devastating burns all over their bodies in the wasteland of once beautiful, tall eucalyptus-filled bush, became a recurring event. Each call or email replaced time that I could’ve been doing another task to help out. But according to my supervisor, doing this provided everyone a little comfort that they were being taken cared for.
One member, who called me to be temporarily changed to a different branch to receive the rescue notifications in that area (since she was already stuck, cut off from returning to her home by the fires and evacuations) described the landscape as “Armageddon.” “I have never seen anything like this in my life, it’s like a war zone.” Watching the news every night and hearing updates of the fire from afar was one thing. To hear it from a volunteer member who was in the heart of the situation, was another. Her words rang in my mind when I thought or heard about the fire. Instead of the couple of emails that I received each day, I arrived each time to my inboxes filled with over 20 emails, each asking for a specific thing, and each needing to be answered differently. With the limited people in the office, I picked up tasks that I had never done, but needed to be finished. Each day, there was barely any time to go outside for fresh air (not that I wanted any of the smoky air), and at the end of each day, I returned to my host mom’s apartment drained and ready for bed. I started to feel disconnected from things. I didn’t want to watch tv with my host mom; it was a grim repetition of the day’s events, and I had no motivation to do anything. On the weekends, I was reluctant to leave my room. The sky, brown and gray, cast an ugly haze on the Sydney landscape that I had grown to love over the past 7 weeks. My mood matched the sky.
Smoke choking the Sydney cityscape (Picture by Blanca Peto)
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I had to deal with fires and smoke, or with my own negative thoughts. Exactly one year ago, California was also facing one of the deadliest and most destructive fires in history. Burning an area, the size of Chicago, the Camp Fire killed at least 85 people and destroyed 14,000 homes, making it one of the most expensive and devastating fires in history (Wootson Jr., 2018). The Camp Fire, which burned less than a 2-hour drive from Davis, also burned endless forests, releasing toxic chemicals and smoke into the air. Smoke from that one fire, smothered much of Northern and Central California. Sacramento at one point during the fire, had the worst air pollution for any major city on Earth. And I was stuck in the middle of it. For days, I was trapped in my apartment. Although I enjoyed the first few hours and the next day, not having to go to school and further procrastinating on my assignments, my roommates and I quickly became agitated, cabin fever was hitting us hard. Not being able to go outside, see the blue sky, or even the trees 50 feet away put us in pretty bitter moods. The only reprieve we got was visiting a friend’s apartment, where we were able to see other human beings for the first time in 3 days. But getting there wasn’t as easy as stepping outside and biking over. Making sure that we all had the correct protective masks, adequate water and enough entertainment to last us for the next hours stuck inside, we were able to leave the apartment, quickly shutting the door behind us to not let a lot of smoke inside. Visiting my friends helped with the disaster, having a chance to talk to people who were equally upset, but also since none of us worked in any way related to the fires, equally oblivious. And, luckily for us, the fire burned for only 17 days, and the smoke cleared up over the next week. I was able to head to my family’s house and be with them for the holidays. However, in New South Wales, fires whipped up by strong winds and continuous warm weather, with little rain in the forecast, were burning, with more popping up across the state as well as into Queensland and heading South to Victoria.
For two years in a row, I experienced some of the worst fires in each separate state’s history. But this is not history, this is the future. Climate change is here, and it is not messing around. In NSW, rainfall between January and August (early fall till winter) was the lowest recorded. Soil moisture was incredibly low, but temperatures and wind speeds increased (Morton, Evershed and Readfearn, 2019). With low humidity, high temperatures and high wind speeds and the lack of water and dried up vegetation, fires were just waiting to happen. Greenhouse gases, released with smoke, just added more and more “fuel” to the unprecedented amounts of methane and CO2 that are warming our planet to unheard levels. With forests and bush around the world at some stage being burned, such as the Amazon rainforest, intentionally set on fire by desperate ranchers trying to obtain for land for their cattle, eventually the functionality of these forests will be greatly diminished. Forests as large as the Amazon are vital to global processes. It’s not called the “earth’s lungs” for nothing. The vegetation and soil are a massive reservoir of carbon, helping process the already excessive quantities in the atmosphere. But deforestation impacts this ability, as well as the natural cycle of movement of moisture, which affects not only regional rainfall patterns, but climate thousands of miles away (Irfan, 2019). Forests like the Amazon and around the world are vital. And change needs to happen.
10 months later, I am in the same situation again; California is in the middle of another round of devastating fires. Unexpected thunderstorms brought lightning, sparking more than 585 fires in the span of several days across the entire state of California (Wigglesworth, et al., 2020). Areas that rarely had any fires in the past quickly became engulfed in flames, bringing devastating loss. Smoke, once again, covers the sun, and dredges up uncomfortable memories of a time in the not so distant past. While growing up, fires were rarely discussed; the idea that smoke from Californian fires could cause parts of the U.S. to have some of the dirtiest air in the world was unimaginable (Cappucci, 2020). But these facts are not surprising anymore.
Reaching out to my supervisor from WIRES, I learned that they are getting prepared for the influx of wildlife rescue calls and preparing for the increased risk of fires. As spring comes back around, everyone is on edge and waiting for the fires; they are inevitable. As my memories come to the surface, with the horrific images of burned landscapes and wildlife, and the images from the news flood my present vision, I think to the future and the need for change, especially in fire burn regiments. Policies that integrate indigenous practices, such as controlled burns, are critical to ensuring that fires in the future are less devastating. When thinking about fires and other natural disasters, what was once the anomaly and atypical is now the typical. We better get our act together.
Sources:
Vaughan, A. (2019) “Smoke from Australia’s bushfires spread to South America” NewScientist https://www.newscientist.com/article/2223677-smoke-from-australias-bushfires-has-spread-to-south-america/
Wootson Jr., Cleve (2018) “The deadliest, most destructive wildlife in California’s history has finally been contained” The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/25/camp-fire-deadliest-wildfire-californias-history-has-been-contained/
Morton, Evershed and Readfearn (2019) “Australia bushfires factcheck: are this year’s fires unprecedented” The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/22/australia-bushfires-factcheck-are-this-years-fires-unprecedented
Irfan, U. (2019) “Brazil’s Amazon rainforest destruction is at its highest rate in more than a decade” Vox https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/11/18/20970604/amazon-rainforest-2019-brazil-burning-deforestation-bolsonaro
Rech, D. (2019) “Israel Folau links Australia’s bushfires and drought to the country’s same-sex and abortion laws” CNN Sports https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/18/sport/israel-folau-bushfires-intl-spt/index.html
Nace, T. (2019) “Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Bushfires Destroy 80% of Their Habitat” Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/11/23/koalas-functionally-extinct-after-australia-bushfires-destroy-80-of-their-habitat/#382ab6ba7bad
Wigglesworth, A. et al., (2020) “Massive California Wildfires Expected to Get Worse as Lightning, Wind Storms Move In” Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-23/massive-california-firestorms-expected-to-worsen-with-more-lightning-winds#:~:text=They%20include%20at%20least%201%2C134,estimated%20585%20fires%20in%20California.
Cappucci, M. (2020) “California Fires Cause Parts of the U.S. to Have Some of the Dirtiest Air in the World” The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/20/california-fires-air-quality/