In an interview with Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Johann Georg Goldammer from the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), we talk about the causes and prevention of fires, particularly in California.
Question: How did the fires in California happen, especially in January, when we normally think of wildfires in summer?
Johann Georg Goldammer: The fires in the Los Angeles area are not classic wildfires, but urban fires. These fires broke out at the interface between the suburbs and the Californian chaparral – a highly flammable scrubland. As soon as the fire spread to the relatively densely built-up urban areas on the outskirts of the city, buildings and infrastructure began to burn. Gardens and green spaces also burned. While trees, especially palm trees, have survived, houses were destroyed and the fire continued to spread from house to house.
Question: How did this fire spread so rapidly?
Johann Georg Goldammer: California is affected by prolonged drought – not only last year, but also in previous years. Consequently, the dry scrubland and settlements became particularly vulnerable. The strong Santa Ana winds carry firebrands in the form of burning or glowing embers of vegetation over long distances. With extremely low humidity, this leads to a very rapid spread of fire. Inside the built-up settlement area, the fire spreads from one house to the next.
Question: Were the Californian authorities sufficiently prepared and effective in the implementation of early warning and evacuation?
Johann Georg Goldammer: Both the authorities and civil society in California are generally well-prepared for situations and are also experienced and practised when fires spread to the outskirts of settlements and cities. Early warnings are issued via the media and mobile phones. As a general rule, if an evacuation order is given, it must be followed. That is the law, so to speak. In contrast to Australia, where self-defence of one’s own property against bushfires is permitted under the motto ‘stay and defend’ and also works effectively. If you have now seen residents in LA in the media who were able to fend off the igniting sparks from their house with a garden hose, this is because the security forces were unable to implement strict compliance with the evacuation orders during this extraordinary evacuation situation and had to point out to the remaining residents their own responsibility and the risk – more was not possible in this major fire situation.
Question: How do you rate the media coverage of the fires in LA?
Johann Georg Goldammer: As is the case every year, there was talk of ‘devastating forest fires’ at the start of the fires. As late as January 10th, ZDF reported on forest fires in the evening programme ‘Heute Journal’, referring to Germany’s forest fire statistics and interviewing people about fire adaptation in African savannahs. Other channels interviewed firefighters who pointed out the dangers of the chimney effect in valleys or suggested cutting large firebreaks. There was a lot of confusion and, in this particular situation, a lack of informed reporting.
Question: Is there international assistance and is the GFMC in contact with the US authorities?
Johann Georg Goldammer: As in comparable situations, we have had several conference calls with our American colleagues, in this case with the U.S. Forest Service. Many countries have offered to help the Californians and send emergency personnel, including Israel and Ukraine, for example. These are strong expressions of solidarity. But what was needed and accepted: Emergency personnel from Canada. Like the Californian firefighters, they have the skills to manage both structural and vegetation fires. And it is precisely this combination of experience that is important. After all, the fires carried into urban areas by spot fires from the chaparral bush by the Santa Ana winds were unusually extended and difficult to control. We are now talking about urban wildfires – a new challenge on this scale – another sign of the climate crisis.
Question: How is climate change altering the conditions for fires?
Johann Georg Goldammer: Climate change is making a significant contribution to the increase in dry periods worldwide. These prolonged dry periods reduce the moisture content of vegetation, especially deadwood. The dryness of the forest floor also increases the risk of fire. We are also seeing this in Germany, where rainfall has decreased in recent years and groundwater levels have fallen, which also increases the risk of fire in German forests.
Question: Could a scenario like the one in California also occur in Germany?
Johann Georg Goldammer: In Germany, a fire on the scale we see in California is rather unlikely, mainly because of different urban planning, architecture and building methods and codes. In general, the transition from adjoining vegetation including forest to residential areas is not so direct, and the risk of fires spreading from house to house is smaller. Nevertheless, fires are also becoming more frequent in Germany, especially in recent years with longer periods of drought. But compared to California, the situation here is still manageable.
Question: Where in Germany are the greatest risks?
Johann Georg Goldammer: The risk of peri-urban fires are particularly high in Brandenburg, as many settlements are located next to or in the forest. There have already been evacuations there in recent years, and the risk is also higher in terms of contamination by unexploded ordnance stemming from Word War II and newly created wilderness areas. The majority of fires in Germany, however, still occur not in urban areas, but rather in open land and forests.
Question: Are we sufficiently prepared for such fires?
Johann Georg Goldammer: California is one of the best prepared countries in the world when it comes to preventing and fighting wildfires. Nevertheless, it is clear that even California is no longer keeping up with fires that are becoming increasingly difficult to control. This is a global problem that we must confront. In Germany, we should do more to take fire safety into account in urban planning and forest management, especially in areas close to forests such as Brandenburg.
Question: What preventive measures would be necessary?
Johann Georg Goldammer: Forests need to be managed with fire safety in mind. In Brandenburg, for example, many pine forests are no longer managed as intensively as they used to be. The deadwood remains in the forest and therefore provides high fuel loads. Better management could prevent fires from spreading so quickly and severely. This also includes the creation of wildfire protection corridors to prevent the spread of fires and ensure the protection of settlements.
Many pine forests, especially in Brandenburg, are no longer managed as intensively as they used to be. When deadwood is left in the forest, the residence time of a fire is longer and the temperatures higher compared to a fast-moving surface fire with less fuel, and it penetrates deeper into the soil. As a result, the root layer and the trunks of the pine trees, which are otherwise very resilient to surface fires that are prevalent in our region mid-aged and mature stands, are damaged and die.
Controlled grazing is also an issue. In strategically planned wildfire protection corridors, the regrowth can then be kept low by grazing animals after heavy thinning and processing of the logging residues. This reduces the risk of surface fires, which are difficult to control, and serves to secure the settlements – also in terms of the increasingly important civil protection.
Question: Is the fire season now all year round?
Johann Georg Goldammer: In the USA and especially on the West Coast, the fire season has now extended to the whole year. Our colleagues in North America have been saying for some years now: ‘We no longer have a fire season because the fires burn all year round.’
Question: How do you assess the calls for the development of new technologies and AI for early warning and firefighting in comparable situations?
Johann Georg Goldammer: Calls for and offers of technological innovations are always particularly loud when there are major fire disasters, not just these days, but also when there are fires in Greece, Saxon Switzerland or Amazonia. The interest of politicians and funding organisations is then quickly aroused when start-ups or even established industry advertise technologies, from fire-fighting aircraft to the use of drones. Or when fire or smoke detection systems are marketed as innovative, especially when AI is brought into play as a driver of progress. This is particularly the case in countries where the increasing problem of comparable fires in the interlinked natural, cultural and industrial landscape is new and the technical expertise in research and application is only just beginning to develop. Here we are seeing players who are aggressively marketing sensors and decision support systems as innovations – systems that have long been available in other countries. Or where such systems have been tested and their suitability rejected – be it extinguishing bombs dropped from aeroplanes, swarms of drones or smoke and temperature sensors that are supposed to report a fire that has broken out across the landscape or in the forest.
All of this distracts from the fact that we should address the underlying causes of the vulnerability to disasters in cities, forests, and rural areas at the root – and that involves the creation of fire-resilient structures in settlements and cities, as well as the intensive management of our natural and cultural landscapes with regard to reducing the risk that large, difficult-to-control wildfires can even develop and spread in the first place.
The DKKV would like to thank Prof Dr Johann Georg Goldammer for the interview and the insights into the topic of fires.
(Picture ©Philipp von Ditfurth)