Saturday Special: Post-Wildfire Urban Renewal
A blend of fire-resistant building materials and plants is the key to rebuilding a safer Los Angeles that also moderates temperature rise.
Already, there is a lot of talk among engineers, architects, and others regarding the rebuilding of Los Angeles. They are studying the reasons why some houses withstood the wildfire's rage while everything else around them burned to the ground. It's heartening to see this happening. I hope they will implement historic designs from desert cultures around the world as well as in this country in planning the new and improved LA. In this video by Two Bit da Vinci, a lot of attention is paid to hard surfaces and heat-resistant materials. This is good, however, I couldn't help thinking that urban areas are already becoming heat sinks, adding to the rise in global temperatures. Studies have resulted in some cities, like Chicago, encouraging green roofs on inner-city buildings to moderate heat radiated from cement and asphalt.
Midwestern cities, however, are located in lush, rainy environments where major floods are the issue. West of the Rocky Mountains is a desert. Morphing our raw and arid landscapes into the soft, green places where most Euro-Americans once lived has proven to be a huge mistake. Palms trees, for example, are ludicrous. They provide little shade from the oppressive heat and become torches, creating crown fires that are difficult to contain.
There was one house shown in LA where two houses burned to the ground, but a high hedge bordering one house stood unscathed. What kind of plant is that? That's the kind of plant to use when rebuilding the city. Botanists need to be consulted alongside architects and materials engineers to make urban areas fire resistant while moderating ambient temperatures.
It will be a hard sell for those who insist on verdant gardens filled with exotic flowers, but aesthetics need to change if Los Angeles is to survive the next wildfire.
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Sounds like you have put a lot of study and thought into this issue, Sue. Thank you.
I learned all I want to know about urban wild fires from working in Paradise for a year and a half after the Camp Fire. There were so many lessons learned there, and I hope some will be learned in L.A. I hope pragmatism can overcome politics, because if politics didn’t start the fire, the actions of elected officials certainly exacerbated it.
Local politicians need to focus on the real, everyday city services and emergency planning. They do not need to spend their time on great theoretical policies. They need to worry about fixing the roads, collecting trash, mitigating safety hazards including wild fires, educating children, and maintaining law and order. Basic civil society stuff. When the reservoirs are filled, the potholes filled, the underbrush cut, the schools are functioning well, and the crime rate bottoms out, maybe there is time to visit Ghana, but I don’t know how it fits into a mayor’s job description.