Fires will happen again and it is up to all of us who live in areas of high fire risk to take action now to protect ourselves and our neighbors. That’s the message delivered by Keegan Gibbs, one of the founders of the Community Brigade, a pilot program that enables volunteer firefighters to train with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
“We need to take radical ownership of the risk,” Gibbs said at a talk delivered to the Composers Breakfast Club in Malibu. Despite the name, this group, which meets on Mondays at Dreamland in Malibu, is open to all, and on this day, includes many who have been directly impacted by the Palisades and Woolsey fires.
Gibbs was accompanied by filmmaker Connor Nelson, who made the documentary Weathered: Inside the L.A. Firestorms, and arborist Carl Mellinger.
Gibbs said the biggest mistake the fire department makes is the promise that they will be here all the time. That makes the department the scapegoat when things go wrong, and it prevents residents of high fire areas from taking responsibility for themselves.
What Topanga experienced during the Palisades Fire was a wildfire—a fire that moves through wildlands with fewer residences or other buildings, or an intermix of houses and wildland. What most other neighborhoods in the burn zone faced was an urban conflagration—a fire that spreads not through vegetation, but from house to house. That was also true of the Eaton fire, which spread within minutes from the mountainside into the heavily urbanized neighborhoods of Altadena.
“We haven’t faced big cities burning down at this scale for a hundred years,” Gibbs said, adding that we are facing them now and that bigger, hotter, faster fires are going to occur. “Fire is going to happen.” Including urban conflagrations that tear through the heart of Los Angeles.
Gibbs explained that houses burn much hotter and longer than vegetation, producing far more embers than trees or other vegetation.
“Trees ‘flashover,” he explained. “A tree burns for a minute. A house can reach 2000-3000 degrees. The embers from it can travel for miles.
The Palisades fire was so hot that some houses ignited from the inside.
“The heat can peel stucco off and make the windows explode,” Gibbs said.
The fire conditions on the day the Palisades and Eaton fires broke out were so extreme that it was unlikely anything anyone could have done would have stopped the conflagration—80 mph winds and single-digit humidity following eight months without rain in a year with record heat. While we can’t prevent fire conditions, there are things homeowners can do to reduce fire risk—harden—their homes.
Gibbs says the three critically important things every homeowner can do to prepare for the next fire are to make sure all structures have a Class A non-combustible roof; that all vents are covered in one-eighth-inch wire mesh; and that the five-foot-wide area around the house is clear of vegetation and combustible materials like garden furniture and cushions, firewood and shrubs.
Most houses already have fire-compliant roofing. Clearing space around the house and replacing the mesh on vents is relatively inexpensive—especially if it prevents the house from catching fire.
Gibbs also recommends making sure that garage doors fit securely and that there aren’t gaps or cracks.
Gibbs and Nelson stressed that “fixes” like controlled burns are unlikely to prevent a conflagration like the Palisades Fire and that more fire fighters are not the answer.
“We have to get to the point where we do not fear fire,” Gibbs said.
To do that, we all need to be prepared for it.
Legislation regarding home hardening is in the process of being drafted in Sacramento. Many Topanga residents have feared that the new laws will result in the loss of many of the trees that give Topanga its character, but all three speakers made it clear that trees are not the problem, provided they are well-cared for, maintained and adequately watered..
In an urban conflagration, fire spreads from house to house, not from trees to houses. “It’s home density,” Gibbs said.
Nelson, a wildfire photographer and documentarian, debunked the idea that clear-cutting wildlands would have prevented the Palisades or Eaton fires. He explained that embers can fly for miles. “You can’t stop a fire,” he said. “You cannot cut enough trees to prevent fires.
Carl Mellinger is a consulting arborist who lost his own home in the Palisades Fire, but it wasn’t because of the trees on his property. He also stressed that fire preparedness does not require the removal of healthy trees.
He’s an expert on trees and their role in wildfire risk and safety. He shared some of his perspective on trees and fire safety at a recent talk in Malibu at the Composers Breakfast Club.
Mellinger began assessing fire damaged trees 40 years ago.
“It was individual fires with houses,” he said. “People always wanted to know if their trees had survived.” Mellinger sold his business in 2018 but continued to work as a consultant.”I had no idea after Woolsey and the Camp Fire up in Paradise, and about seven fires later, that I would have written around 500 tree appraisals and reports on trees that were damaged, and never knew that I would become a tree/fire expert.”
“I think it’s really important that people understand that [the Palisades Fire] wasn’t a wildfire, there wasn’t a lot of organic material involved,” he said. “It wasn’t trees catching houses on fire. Most of my experience is that the trees were burned by the houses. If I could leave everyone here with a message it would be don’t over react, don’t go cut your trees down prematurely. There are a lot of trees that are resistant to fire.
Mellinger stated that coast live oaks, the most abundant native tree in Topanga, are highly fire tolerant, provided they are well-cared for and receive adequate water and maintenance.
Surprisingly, eucalyptus is also fire tolerant.
“I have lots of people call me to say cut it down, it’s a fire bomb and I say where did you hear that?” Mellinger said. “And they say, ‘I read it in the paper,’” so even though it is in the paper or in the news, you guys have to look a little deeper and understand that these trees have been fighting fires for tens of thousands of years down where they came from in Australia.”
Palm trees are a legitimate fire concern. “Palms are like children or your pets,” Mellinger said. “Keep them clean, cut off all the dead fronds. Those things can be like torches. a couple of the palms have harry trunks, that could be an issue. If you are going to own a palm tree make sure you invest money in maintaining it.
Mellinger also stresses the importance of home hardening and moving flammable materials away from the house, but he also urges homeowners not to “over-react on removing trees.”
“Trees can be very resistant to burning,” he said. They can also act as “ember catchers,” protecting the house they surround.
Even eucalyptus can be an ember catcher, Mellinger said. “It’s a large mass with a lot of moisture in it. Embers are going to bounce off.
However, trees need to be cleaned out, but not over pruned, and watering is essential, depending on the species.
“Moisture content is important,” Mellinger stressed. “Keep trees hydrated. Soil can dry out, so mulch is very important. It also controls weeds, and weeds act like a fuel ladder.”
For those who are facing the decision to remove trees damaged in the fire, Mellinger recommends consulting with an arborist if in doubt.
“It’s really important to spend a few minutes,” Mellinger said. “A lot of these dots were put on trees by arborists from out of state,” he said, referring to the blue dots placed on trees to tag them for removal by the Army Corps of Engineers. “I got a hold of the colonel running operations for Army Corps and was able to influence him to change protocol and increase the level of knowledge of the people who were analyzing these trees. We figure two or three thousand trees have been incorrectly marked in the Pasadena and Eaton area.”
“The Palisades fire for some reason was much hotter and much more devastating than the Eaton Fire, probably mostly because in the Eaton fire there were more oak trees there,” he says.
The message of all three men was focused on the importance of stewardship: making sure houses are hardened not just for the safety of the family that lives there but for the good of the neighborhood, taking care of important assets like trees and keeping them healthy; and taking ownership of the knowledge that we live in an area of extreme fire risk and that fires will happen again in the future.
“We have to get to the place where we don’t fear fire,” Gibbs said.
Not because it isn’t scary, and not because someone will save us from it, but because we understand it and have learned to live with it.
Connor Nelson’s film Weathered, which features interviews with Keegan Gibbs, can be viewed at: https://www.pbs.org/video/weathered-inside-the-la-firestorm-l31r0b/
Learn more about Carl Mellinger at https://carlmellingerconsulting.com/, and the Composers Breakfast Club at https://www.composersbreakfastclub.org/
