This post will be focused on the horrifying wildfires that have been occurring in California for almost a whole month now.
Since January 7, wildfires in California that had been started at a multitude of surroundings due to the dangerous and persistent Santa Ana winds, have combined to engulf the state in flames.
But why have the Santa Ana winds caused such a dangerous calamity?
The Santa Ana Winds start off as cold, but as they travel down mountain ranges such California's they accumulate into extremely hot and dry winds. Now with temperatures already reaching high records and vegetation becoming even drier, patches of land started being ignited by the winds, growing and expanding towards the cities. With California's 300+ intersecting mountain ranges, the Santa Ana winds have combined with the increasingly drier climate to start these wildfires everywhere, in all directions. Then as they approached heavily urbanized areas of California, they combined to destroy buildings, roads, schools, and hospitals.
In fact according to USA Today, "a total of 40,300 acres have burned across multiple blazes" and "more than 100,000 have been forced to flee their home".
How are we pivoting in this crisis?
Most companies are turning towards satellite programs, most notably, Google. Google has partnered with the Earth Fire Alliance to launch the FireSat, a satellite program that can detect as easily as "5x5, the size of a classroom" in acres of forests, allowing firefighters to respond quicker and more effectively to future and the still ongoing fires.
My take:
The common assumption for the increase in wildfires among most people automatically jumps to global warming and we tend to fixate on the issue so much that we believe that environmental science is just about combating climate change as well as global warming. The initiatives that these companies are bringing in terms of satellites are a clear indicator that fields such as technology, environmental science, and environmental engineering are not just exercised for the climbing existence of rising temperatures, but also healing our planet and aiding it in recovery to natural disasters.
Don't get me wrong, global warming has reached record-breaking levels that we need to act quickly with creative solutions to somehow slow it and calm it down, but that's not what environmentalists should only be about. As dozens of articles pop up on my phone each day, informing me of new damage being done, it made me realize that the people in California are literally having their whole life burnt down, in terms of their jobs, education, and landmarks of their life. With California being home to beautiful forestry, the burnt atmosphere of not just wildlife but also memories, causes not just the people to be helpless but also the scorched earth itself. And by implementing rapid-fire, efficient changes to combat this long-standing issue, we prioritize the earth's health as well the people's.
