David-Wallace Wells & Daniel Swain on the Return of the "Urban Firestorm:" Some Reflections

 

30 December 2021: the Marshall fire in Boulder County, Colorado

I've been paying attention to climate change since around 1990, and it's been foremost on my radar for about 20 years. And, as with many, I suppose I have a bit of burnout from seeing the rock move only inches when we need to have moved it miles. But this event really renewed my vigor. It really sobered me up--and I'm already on the wagon. This article by David Wallace-Wells (author of Uninhabitable Earth), like his book, made me realize how vulnerable we all are. The article is more of an interview than a report. Wallace-Wells has an extended conversation with University of Colorado (Boulder) climate scientist Daniel Swain. 

The truly frightening thing about this fire was that it was not a "forest fire"--it originated on the plains, in the grasslands with only limited woodlands in the vicinity--and it quickly became an "urban firestorm."* Most of us have read about great fires that destroyed whole cities: London, Chicago, and San Francisco pop to mind. But that was then. In the twentieth century, these fires were unknown except for the intentional fire-bombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and Hamburg, among others. Since 1945 we haven't seen these intentional fires in urban areas, and our ability to prevent and control fires has prevented fires from devouring whole city blocks and killing hundreds and thousands of people. But as the events in Boulder county show, the urban firestorm may be back--or its suburban off-spring is now emerging. 

So just another climate change-related risk? Not if you live in the American West, or perhaps, if things continue, in other parts of the world, too. And if you live in Colorado Springs, as I do, you read this article and learn that the circumstances in Boulder appear very (very) little different than here in Colorado Springs. In mid-December, Colorado Springs (and all the way into Iowa) suffered a windstorm that downed trees and power lines and blew over semis. That storm and left us without power for about two and one-half days. Wind gusts of up to 100 mph were recorded. We, too, are on prairie with its dry grasses and close to the foothills of the Rockies and the forests that surround Pikes Peak. And we, too, have suffered from the same drought that Swain and Wallace-Wells describe in their interview. When I reflect back on our storm and the inconvenience that we suffered (we stayed a couple of nights with our daughter and son-in-law), it strikes me that we were lucky not to have also experienced out-of-control fires as well. 

Now for the bad news: I don't believe that there's a safe place. The effects of "climate enabled, weather-driven" disasters will only increase: droughts, fires, windstorms and derechos, tornadoes, hurricanes, extremes of heat and cold, and so on. Of course, you may say that we've always had to deal with these events, but we're not talking (at least at this point) about unique events. We're dealing with these familiar events that have grown in frequency and magnitude to the point where we're talking about "urban firestorms" once again; where we're setting meteorological and climate records constantly, and where insurance pay-outs for such disasters hit new highs on a regular basis (for those in who can obtain and afford insurance). 

And what will we do about this? 

*I suppose that given the locale, the authors might have termed the event a "suburban firestorm," which, given the reduced density of suburban homes & businesses (and frequency of great big parking lots) should make the prospect all the more frightening.