Urban sprawl fuels California wildfires?

First of all, I’d like to send well wishes to those individuals and families displaced by the wildfires happening in southern California. Nobody deserves to lose their home, or their community, to natural disasters.

You can argue that during a crisis is not the best time to discuss the causes of that crisis, but to me it is. So I ask, is urban sprawl responsible for this devastation?

A study published this summer by the US Geological Survey argues that it is.

The scientists weren’t surprised when their research documented that increasing human settlement is exacerbating fire hazard in California. “Ultimately, as more low-density housing development spreads into California’s undeveloped wildlands, the greater the risk will be that more fires will ignite and that fire hazard will increase,” said Dr. Jon Keeley, a USGS research ecologist.

The study also gives some weight to the flammable material that covers the countryside as part of the cause of these fires. But southern California is a desert, and fires have probably raged across these hills since before man ever stepped foot here.

“As more low-density housing expands into wildland vegetation, the more likely that fire ignitions will spread along with it,” said the lead author of the study.

Urban sprawl is the proverbial the 800-lb gorilla in the room of the California wildfires. But after hundreds of hours of coverage given to this devastation, has anyone bothered to ask why we continue to turn untamed terrain into sub-divisions?