在优胜美地国家公园边缘的加利福尼亚小镇布里斯堡（Briceburg），工人正在为一家名为Boxpower的初创公司安装新的太阳能微电网。当地公用事业，太平洋天然气和电气，用于通过穿过偏远地区的长分配线向社区发送电力，这是引发灾难性野火的相同类型的设备，例如2018年席卷天堂镇，杀死至少86人。随着新的网格为当地的社区产生力量，危险的长途基础设施不再需要存在。
For PG&E, which was found responsible for starting more than1,500个野火近年来，由于老化，可能在超干燥景观中产生火花的不雄厚的电力线，这种远程网格是降低未来风险的更大计划的一部分。该州消防局森林服务局和Cal Fire也正在采取措施，以帮助该州避免更多的灾难性大火。但是，经过多年的极端大火，在2021年，加利福尼亚将面临另一个危机（或系列危机）的可能性？
“We have clear evidence that climate change is influencing wildfire risk in California,” says Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University. In the Western U.S. overall, he says, around half of the total area burned in the last four decades can be attributed to long-term warming. California doesn’t normally get rain in the summer anyway. But as the state gets hotter, vegetation is getting even drier. (In the winter, there’s also less snow now in the mountains because of warmer temperatures, and the snow that does fall melts faster, adding to the dryness.)
Wildfire season is getting longer and more intense; the rainy season used to start in October in Northern California, but now starts in November or December. In the past, strong, dry winds that naturally happen in the fall would often coincide with rain. Now those winds tend to gust exactly when plants and trees are driest and fires can spread most easily. Long droughts are also killing trees, creating more fuel to burn.
“I think the likelihood that California sees another severe fire season this year is high, unfortunately, because the drought is deepening,” says Swain. “This is now year two of what was already a significant drought in California. We’re now living in an era that is a lot warmer than it used to be. So even if we weren’t in a drought, we would expect that the likelihood of a bad wildfire season was elevated relative to what it would have been in the past.”
PG&E, required by the state to create a wildfire mitigation plan, is installing dozens of remote grids such as the one in Briceburg and deploying more crews to inspect transmission lines and clear vegetation in other areas. (The latter step hasn’t worked perfectly, and state regulators areconsidering more oversight, saying that the utility didn’t correctly clear vegetation last year.) A new wildfire risk model, using tech from a company called Technosylva, predicts where fires may occur, helping the utility target the places to repair or strengthen the most vulnerable power lines. PG&E is also installing new cameras and weather stations to track conditions and detect new fires.
This year, as in recent years, Cal Fire plans to do controlled burns on tens of thousands of acres of land, helping clear out old vegetation so there’s less to burn if a new fire starts. It’s also thinning out trees in some areas. “If a fire is coming through and hits that area that’s been treated, there’s less fuel to burn there,” says Christine McMorrow of Cal Fire. “It’s going to change the fire behavior, and it’s going to change the fire intensity.” The agency also helps small-forest owners to do similar clearing. It advises homeowners to create “defensible space” and clear out trees around their houses to reduce the chance that the home will burn. (In addition, homebuilders can choose fire-resistant materials and make其他设计更改。
所有这些都会有所帮助，尽管可以说这需要更大的规模发生。在2020年，随着Covid-19的强制预算削减，以帮助使用耐火材料改造房屋并减少野生燃料损失资金的计划，同时该州最终在紧急消防上花费了超过10亿美元。即使气候变化重塑了总体威胁，也比扑灭火灾要少得多。
斯温说：“在21世纪，美国西部和加利福尼亚这样的地方的野火增加是不可避免的。”“我们将看到更昂贵，更严重的火年。问题是，我们是否看到野火灾难继续增加，这些灾难会带来生命并烧毁许多房屋。那部分不是不可避免的。因此，我认为我们必须意识到，无论如何，景观中的火灾都将发生，但是我们可以选择是什么样的火，以及它的后果。我们真的应该问自己，我们如何将野火与灾难脱离？一个不一定要从另一个领导。”