This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Abstract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”
Yes, exactly, Dave. Btw, I used to work at Reason and have interacted with PERC throughout the years -- a really great organization that deserves more attention.
I don't know whether your essay makes me hopeful or hopeless, Ted. Probably a bit of both. Why aren't the Surfer Tims of the country getting elected to public governance? Can they get elected?
My elderly parents live in SoCal, so I am always watching what's going there and hoping trouble doesn't come to greet them. Have a plan everyone!
Reminds me of Thomas Sowell, a hero of mine. He had all the elements to be a first-rate elected official: brains, humility, excellent speaking skills, inspiring personal story. The only thing he didn't have was the desire to rule over others. He probably could have been president, but he just didn't want to.
Well, I'm glad the reaction wasn't complete hopelessness! I think there are probably two reasons why people like surfer Tim don't get elected: 1. They don't want to run, 2. They wouldn't get elected (at least not in California). Get your parents some fire retardant spray!
Reason Magazine
California's Fire
Catastrophe Is Largely a
Result of Bad
Government Policies
This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Abstract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”
Yes, exactly, Dave. Btw, I used to work at Reason and have interacted with PERC throughout the years -- a really great organization that deserves more attention.
I don't know whether your essay makes me hopeful or hopeless, Ted. Probably a bit of both. Why aren't the Surfer Tims of the country getting elected to public governance? Can they get elected?
My elderly parents live in SoCal, so I am always watching what's going there and hoping trouble doesn't come to greet them. Have a plan everyone!
Reminds me of Thomas Sowell, a hero of mine. He had all the elements to be a first-rate elected official: brains, humility, excellent speaking skills, inspiring personal story. The only thing he didn't have was the desire to rule over others. He probably could have been president, but he just didn't want to.
I would have liked, I'm pretty sure, to have lived in a President Sowell administration.
Well, I'm glad the reaction wasn't complete hopelessness! I think there are probably two reasons why people like surfer Tim don't get elected: 1. They don't want to run, 2. They wouldn't get elected (at least not in California). Get your parents some fire retardant spray!
Sending my thoughts and prayers to anyone near these fires. Stay safe!
Thanks Margo!