Publisher’s Notebook

• Thoughts Down Under and Hereabouts •

ANNE SOBLE

Despite my readiness to support challenging Australia’s corporate energy behemoths over unwanted and unneeded liquefied natural gas terminals in Southern California and elsewhere, my personal ties with Down Under preclude the eco-enviro differences ever becoming personal. Even if I did not know the wildfire-ravaged communities of Oz’s state of Victoria as well as I do, I, and, all of Malibu, would bemoan the tragic loss of hundreds of lives and nearly a thousand homes as over 400 blazes rage unchecked through southeastern Australia.
Victoria’s coast has a climate and topography similar to ours. This is an area prone to wildfires, where local Aussies traditionally took care of themselves, but intense development has resulted in a more urbanized population that expects public services to always be able to respond to crisis, which they don’t always have the personnel or equipment to do. Sound familiar? Malibuites know firsthand what an out-of-control wildfire fueled by 60-plus mph winds is like. However, despite Malibu having suffered comparable property losses, the human toll has never been as great. That arson may be playing a part in the Australian fires is totally reprehensible.
Malibuites are not just watching this tragedy on a human level, because it has major implications for local public policy as Los Angeles County explores how to employ the Oz “stay and defend” concept in our own wildfire situations, where there will also never be enough personnel and equipment when one or more major conflagrations are out of control. Prudent public policy must balance how to enable those who know what to do in the face of wildfire and have the will to do it, with getting people who do not have this wherewithal out of harm’s way without shutting down Pacific Coast Highway. There cannot be an arbitrary dictum that only addresses part of this complicated quandary.
••••
Hopefully, no censure will result from addressing wildfire issues while Malibu is still drying out from a troika of rainstorms, and looking ahead to another series of wet weather fronts in the next 10 days. It’s true that our rain gauges runneth over and the creeks are freely flowing. The lush verdancy is intoxicating, but that intoxication should not cloud the fact that California is in its third year of record drought. Even if this winter’s rainfall is above average, that may not circumvent the imposition of stringent water controls in Southern California and statewide during the months ahead. The drought created by the current climate changes has a direct influence on wildfire patterns. The two factors are so intertwined that we cannot discuss one without considering the other.
••••
It is ironic that the rain that we so desperately need can exacerbate a complex array of water quality issues that are too often viewed simplistically. Fire, weather, and water are all inexorably linked. The problems cross city, county, state, national, and continental lines. They have to be responded to with a comprehensiveness that acknowledges that everyone has a stake in the solutions.