Climate change have increased the probability of the recent fires of southern California by 35%, according to a new study published by World Weather Attribion, an international group of climatic scientists and other experts.
The study comes when the residents of Los Angeles begin to reconstruct their lives in the wake of catastrophic fires burst at the beginning of this month. The fires were triggered by almost perfect conditions: the previous two years have been unusually wet, increasing the growth of the vegetation adapted to fires. This year, the climate change distributed the region two heavy shots: a delayed annual rainy season and intense winds of Santa Ana who have raised the flames and spread the long and wide embers.
These extreme weather conditions will be more common, according to the study, adding a new urgency to a flourishing startup group for the climatic adaptation that hope to mitigate the impact of the fires.
Extreme weather conditions are likely to occur once every 17 years. “Compared to a colder climate of 1.3 ° C, this is an increase in the probability of about 35%,” wrote the authors of the study. “However, this trend is not linear,” they added, stating that the frequency of years at risk of fire has increased rapidly in recent years.
Southern California is not extraneous to the fire. His ecosystems have evolved to handle-and even thrived by regular fire and low intensity. But over a century of suppression of fire interrupted the natural regime and, in its absence, people built more deeply in the ecosystems adapted to the fire.
Today, these areas are known as the wild-urban interface, or Wui and the density of the accommodation is complicated the picture. Since the landscape has been carved in smaller packages, often removing excess vegetation falls on individual owners of houses, which may not realize that they are responsible for the task.
Elsewhere, it is often better to introduce prescribed burns, in which the land managers begin low -intensity fires during the weather conditions that make the flame at low intensity easy to contain and direct. The process helps to rebalance the ecosystem and prevent the construction of dry brushes. But also in places where the prescribed combustion is possible, it is still difficult to introduce, which requires a well-trained public buy-in.
Startups entered the void. Vibrant Planet has developed a platform that helps public services and land managers analyze a series of data to determine where the risk of fire is higher. So, it helps them to work with a series of stakeholders, including landowners, conservation organizations and indigenous groups, to develop plans to mitigate the risk.
Once the plans are underway, other startups intervene to do the dirty work. A company, Kodama, rearrange forest equipment for remote operation, allowing you to thin the forests at lower costs, reducing the load of the fuel that can lead to a catastrophic fire.
Another, Burnbot, has developed a remote machine that does the work of a burn prescribed in the relative safety of its metal sweat. There, the propane torches burn the vegetation while sliding under the car. The fans at the top of the machine keep the air flowing in the burning chamber, increasing the fire temperature to reduce smoking and embers. In the back of the car, the rollers and coaches of water turn off any flames or embers who remain on the ground.
But also with the management of vegetation and the prescribed combustion, the climate and ecosystems of southern California will not be completely free of fires. To further minimize the risk of catastrophic fires, another series of startups is working to identify fires immediately after they lit so that the crews can respond quickly.
For example, Pano uses artificial intelligence to creak a series of sources of data, including cameras, satellite images, field sensors and emergency notices, to automatically detect new fires. Google is also at stake, having worked with Muon Space to launch Firesat, who can imagine fire from orbit every 20 minutes.
And if the fires were to escape early detection and containment, other startups such as FiGome are developing tools to protect houses and companies. The startup based in Israel has created an firefighting defense system assisted by the AI who launches bullets archived with fire delay. The automated system can establish a delaying perimeter before the fire reaches a property or, if the embers are already flying, it can affect hotspots to extinguish the flames before transforming into conflagrazioni.
Land owners and managers will have to become smarter on how to limit their risk. It is unlikely that there is a single solution, but rather a combination of advanced technology and management of the old -fashioned territory.
