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The world is on fire! It is not anything new that global warming has been in effect for decades now. Our past summers have been hot, and not only do we feel it, but so does our environment. In the past years, Maui has had itʻs fair share of brush fires, but nothing compares to the apocalyptic scenes happening on the West Coast of America.
Mason Dugny has been a firefighter of the National Forest Service for nine years; three on the hand crew and six with helicopters. He states that "about 90% of fires in the United States are human-caused. It's not just negligence, or, you know, purposely causing fires". That plus the effects of longer and hotter summers gives a turn out of a prolonged and more extensive fire season.
According to CNBC, California had more than 3.3 million acres burned, Oregon more than 586,000 acres, and at least 764,000 acres in Washington burned back in September. Those numbers are drastically more remarkable than those of previous years, and it seems they continue to grow and spread. Because of the conditions, itʻs becoming more challenging for firefighters to, well, fight the fires. "We have people from all over the United States. We have people from Canada and New Zealand, and Australia here helping out, but the size and numbers of these fires are overwhelming the resources. We don't have nearly the number of people we'd like to have to be able to put these fires out," Dugny claims.
About two years ago, North Kihei experienced a massive brush fire that resulted in residents evacuating the area. Kihei seems like a big town in Maui's scope, but relating that to the towns and cities affected by the fires in the mainland is a whole other story. "There are hundreds of thousands of people who are evacuated from their homes right now. Unable to go home. There are thousands of people who have lost their homes. Unfortunately, when these fires pick up and decide to make a run, there's not a lot you can do to stand in the way. Unfortunately, that's the worst thing that we have to deal with. There are people that just aren't able to get out of the way when these fires move so quickly, and that's pretty tough to see that's been up and down the entire West Coast," says Dugny.
Of course, as individuals who are mostly high schoolers from Maui, there is little we can do to help fight the fires on the mainland, so what exactly can we do to spark a different type of flame? Well, Dugny suggests, "In the short term, I'm sure you guys have all seen Smokey Bear. Don't play with matches, and be responsible with fire". Another way to prevent fires or help those affected is to support nonprofit organizations and learn from them. Here are just some, American Red Cross, National Fire Safety Council, and Direct Relief. On a smaller, more local level, there is the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization.
As for long-term prevention, Dugny states that "longer-term prevention of wildfires is a more complex issue. For the last hundred plus years, our fire strategy was prevention, we would get to a fire and put it out as quickly as possible, and that worked for a time, but now these large fires have ladders of fuel that reach up into the canopy and can kill trees that have survived fires for hundreds of years".
The world is on fire, and it seems like it wonʻt stop or slow down anytime soon. Since climate change has only gotten worse over the years, the most we can do is support one another during this heated time and try our best to take care of the place we call home.