Currently, over 4,400 California firefighters have and continue to battle wildfires that have charred more than 4 million acres since the beginning of the year. The fires have claimed at least 31 lives and displaced thousands from their homes.
Unfortunately, these catastrophes are not unusual. In 2018 and 2019, California wildfires claimed more than 100 lives, destroyed nearly 26,000 buildings, and burned more than 2.2 million acres of land. These alarming figures serve as an urgent reminder of the annual threat that wildfires pose to our communities. According to Verisk’s 2020 Wildfire Risk Analysis, nearly 4.5 million homes in the U.S. are at high or extreme risk for wildfires, of which more than two million are in California.
We must be better prepared, particularly given the resources being diverted to fight the pandemic that has killed more than 12,000 Californians.
Fortunately, there are actions that our leaders can take now to mitigate future wildfire risk and safeguard our communities and first responders. In a climate policy paper released earlier this year, the SmarterSafer Coalition outlined pre-disaster mitigation efforts that our local, state, and federal governments should implement to help decrease the damage caused by natural disasters, such as wildfires and floods.
Pre-disaster mitigation approaches will not only protect our communities but also taxpayer dollars. These savings are far from insignificant. Every dollar spent on pre-disaster mitigation is estimated to save six dollars in post-disaster recovery.
Read the full op-ed by ConservAmerica President Jeff Kupfer here.