Lauren von Aspen
“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.”
-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Cold tends to humble a population. It forces them to reckon with the fact that there are forces of nature that will forever lie beyond our control. This acknowledgement is cyclical and seasonal, as every winter people worldwide step out their doors bundled up in scarves and overbearing jackets. Not so in Southern California, where even in the depths of winter the weather app can remain untouched. Our lives are generally disconnected from the natural environment, and this is by design. Our cities, namely Los Angeles, are designed in a way that disregards nature. It casts aside traditional knowledge and environmental principles in favor of sprawling industry and automotive infrastructure.
But every so often, on a predictably unpredictable timeline, we are reminded that there is more to California than meets the eye. Take the winds, for example. You can always feel the Santa Ana winds (or Diablos, as they are called up North) in your body even before you can begin to hear its howling. Like Joan Didion writes in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, “ It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination”. Now I cannot claim to be an Angelino, nor would the Angelinos claim anyone from Orange County, but an hour South, in my hometown, the Santa Anas blow just as strong and indiscriminately. They are hot, dry winds that come from inland, as opposed to the cool, coastal winds that typically blow in from the ocean. The day before they start to blow, I can always feel my skin dry up and my throat start to scratch. And when the winds come, it can be a sight to behold– a powerful force of nature that uproots trees and leaves the neighborhood in shambles. In this weather, where gusts can blow up to a hundred miles an hour, fighting a fire is essentially impossible.
The winds, much like the metaphorical and ecological landscape of California, are highly unpredictable and prone to disaster. Living here, one misstep, or one loose spark, can erupt into a destructive and uncontrollable blaze. This is compounded by the existential threat of “the big one”, a theorized city-levelling earthquake, which tends to come to mind during periods of especially pronounced dread. The Southern California landscape is one of pronounced disequilibrium. Living in California is living in paradise on the brink of catastrophe.
Although we cannot predict earthquakes or wind direction, we can predict fire. Maybe not down to an exact timeline (as Gavin Newsom stated, there is no longer a fire “season” in California), but we do know that it will happen. It always has, and it always will.
While wildfires are a natural part of California’s ecosystems, humans have undoubtedly made the intensity of fires worse. Climate change makes temperatures hotter and drought-prone areas drier, priming Californian vegetation for ferocious blazes. Additionally, human-caused ignition events are on the rise, whether through deliberate arson, firework mishaps, electrical sparks, or even the infamous gender reveal incident. Invasive annual grasses, which were carried over from Europe, dominate Californian grasslands and are more prone to ignition. But most of all, even beyond the effects of climate change, humans have made widespread fire events more deadly, costly, and widespread through the suppression of traditional practices and a general inattention to natural fire regimes when building cities.
Wildfires are native to California. In fact, many of our ecosystems are specially adapted to them; there are pinecones whose seeds are only released in the event of fire, and in chaparral environments the deep seedbank quickly regenerates after a blaze. On the other end of fire adaptation are the giant sequoia and redwood trees, whose thick bark is built to withstand the frequent surface fires that, before policies of fire suppression, once spread through our forests. And for as long as humans have inhabited this state, they have had to contend with fire as well. Indigenous Californians found ways to live and thrive with fire, using it intentionally as a resource-bearing tool. These intentional fire techniques are called cultural burns, named so “not only because of its spiritual and cultural importance to Indigenous communities, but because the burns are designed to cultivate the biodiverse, sustainable growth that make landscapes more resilient”. During times of Indigenous land management, forests were managed through the use of frequent, low severity fires in order to promote the growth of desired vegetation. They also decreased the total biomass and created separation between trees, decreasing the likelihood of high severity wildfire. These management practices were banned by settling Europeans and fire suppression policies were codified into law under the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which outlawed intentional burning in the newly-formed state. Cultural burns, the details of which are passed down generation to generation, serve as a reminder that both Californian ecological and human communities have historically adapted to fire.
The reality of the situation is that fire in California is not going to stop, no matter how much more money we spend on water tanks or fire trucks. As we rebuild, we must prioritize fire mitigation over fire suppression, and the existence of fire must be put at the forefront of our city planning. Some potential measures include creating buffer zones between buildings, managing and enforcing vegetation restrictions, repurposing land away from residential use, and creating fire management plans. The loss of a house is absolutely devastating, and the loss of a life even more so. The anxiety of sitting and waiting, repeatedly checking the fire map to see if your house will be destroyed or not, is a feeling of complete powerlessness. Looking forward, we need to remember “how close to the edge we are”. The winds, and the fires, will return. Only when we accept this reality can we truly protect ourselves and our livelihoods from catastrophe.
Citations
Didion, Joan. Slouching towards Bethlehem,“The Santa Anas.” Picador Modern Classics, 1968.
Hill, Alice C. “After the Fires: How to Rebuild Los Angeles.” Council on Foreign Relations, 2025, www.cfr.org/expert-brief/after-fires-how-rebuild-los-angeles.
Large, Holly. “California Governor Says State Has No ‘Fire Season’ Anymore, It’s ‘Year-Round’ – Why?” IFLScience, 9 Jan. 2025, www.iflscience.com/california-governor-says-state-has-no-fire-season-anymore-its-year-round-why-77559. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Schelenz, Robyn. “How the Indigenous Practice of ‘Good Fire’ Can Help Our Forests Thrive.” University of California, 6 Apr. 2022, www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/how-indigenous-practice-good-fire-can-help-our-forests-thrive.
Shamim, Sarah. “Is Climate Change to Blame for the California Wildfires?” Al Jazeera, 11 Jan. 2025, www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/11/is-climate-change-to-blame-for-the-california-wildfires.