LA Wildfires: A disaster management expert on rebuilding after a tragedy
- Date: 04 February 2025
Last month a series of wildfires spread across communities in Los Angeles and left a trail of destruction in their wake. Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their neighborhoods. Over 15,000 homes and other structures were burned. And at least two dozen people were killed. It’s well documented that climate change contributes to making fires like these worse. And it also exacerbates other hazards like droughts, floods, and storms. So what can local leaders in LA and in other communities in the US and around the world do in the wake of these extreme events to address systemic risks and proactively reduce catastrophic disasters?
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Today you’ll hear from Anita van Breda, WWF’s senior director for environment and disaster management. Anita has decades of experience working with communities affected by natural hazards, and she’ll share her insights on disaster risk management and recovery in the wake of this most recent tragedy in LA.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking, a World Wildlife Fund podcast focused on the news and trends affecting our natural world and the people and species who call it home.
I'm Seth Larson. Last month, a series of wildfires spread across communities in Los Angeles and left a trail of destruction in their wake. Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their neighborhoods, over 15,000 homes and other structures were burned, and at least two dozen people were killed.
It's well documented that climate change contributes to making fires like these worse. The warming world has supercharged the atmosphere, setting the stage for greater extremes between wet and dry conditions, with heavy rains causing rapid vegetation growth, and then longer, hotter droughts causing that vegetation to dry out and become tinder when a fire gets sparked.
But there are other factors at work, too. Things like old infrastructure that was built to put out single structure fires and that's more compatible with the climate conditions of the 20th century, but that is ill suited to withstand the disasters that climate change will continue to bring this century.
So, what can local leaders in Los Angeles and elsewhere do in the wake of these disasters to address those systemic risks? Joining me today is Anita van Breda, WWF's Senior Director for Environment and Disaster Management. Anita has decades of experience working with communities affected by natural hazards, and she'll share her thoughts in the wake of this most recent tragedy in Los Angeles.
And before we get started, if you value this podcast and the expertise that it showcases, please take a moment to like this episode and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your app of choice. Liking and subscribing helps us build a community of supporters who care about nature.
Now here's my conversation with Anita…
Okay, Anita van Breda, welcome back to Nature Breaking.
Anita van Breda: Thank you, it's so good to be with you again.
Seth Larson: Yeah, so before we talk about the most recent wildfires in Los Angeles, can you tell our listeners a bit about your experience working in disaster areas? I know, for example, that you were involved in the emergency response after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. We just passed the 20-year anniversary of that event. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that experience and what it taught you about community resilience.
Anita van Breda: Sure. Yeah, I joined WWF in 2002 initially to do marine conservation work. That's really what my background is in, that was what my passion was and still is. But when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami happened, that was my first time to really get exposed to disasters and disaster response, and to really learn about the role that nature plays in reducing disaster risk and in contributing to a rebuilding and recovery process. So, with that event, we were fortunate to have a five-year partnership with the American Red Cross, working together with them in four different countries. And we were looking at rebuilding livelihoods, rebuilding shelter, rebuilding water and sanitation systems, and then also looking at the role that nature can play in disaster risk reduction.
So, through that five-year process, I certainly learned a lot about how nature can help people be safer and more secure, as we move forward, particularly in a world of a changing climate, where we're facing different extreme events. That was my introduction to this world of disasters, and I've been doing it ever since.
Seth Larson: Yeah, and can you remind our listeners of folks who may not remember, just talk briefly about the scale of that disaster and sort of the nature of it. I mean, it was really, I was reading some articles about the 20th anniversary recently, and I lived through it. I remember it happening. But I had forgotten the scale of the devastation. I wonder if you can just speak to that briefly.
Anita van Breda: Right, so of course it was an earthquake that launched a tsunami that impacted, I believe, a total of 13 countries in Southeast Asia. South Asia and even all the way across Africa who felt the impact of the tsunami in particular. But there was also an earthquake, so there was a lot of physical damage as well, and particularly in Indonesia.
So, the scale was, as you said, quite significant. Several hundred thousand people were killed and/or injured. Economies that were devastated. And so, it was an unprecedented event. Of course, it was not related to climate or climate change. It was a physical hazard, but a lot of the processes and the things that we've learned in that process, of course, can be applied to other natural hazards.
Seth Larson: Yeah. Well, that's, that's a great pivot point to talk about what kind of what we've been seeing in the news most recently with these fires in Los Angeles. You know, I'm mindful that fires in California are not a new phenomenon. I think we've all seen it over the years and maybe even gotten a little bit numb to the headlines about wildfires in California. But these ones felt a little different. And I wanted to ask you if you could speak a little bit about what factors caused these fires to be so widespread and so destructive.
Anita van Breda: Yeah, full disclosure, Seth, I'm not an expert on California, but what I have absorbed and learned from that event is not unlike what we've seen in many other events over the years. And that is, it's typically several different factors that come together to create a crisis. So, for example, the ecology of that area in California is naturally associated with fire.
Fire is part of the landscape there and that's been known historically for a very long time, of course. But now we have a combination of that natural phenomenon, that natural hazard, combined with people who have moved into that area have built their lives and their communities and their societies. And then we also have a changing climate.
So, we've seen extreme events, and it's very clear there that they had a few years of excessive rain, which led to vegetation growth, a lot of vegetation growth, and then they had an extremely dry year, which allowed that vegetation to become tinder, really, for fire. And then you get a spark, and all these things come together to create that particular disaster. So, there's always multiple factors that are involved with that type of risk.
I've seen similar reporting in and it's such a tragic irony that, you know, the, I think one of the biggest concerns leading to fires in that region is always these droughts and, and extreme dry periods and the fact that the last couple of years were sort of a welcome reprieve from that, with lots of moisture and rain and, and snow pack that came down from the mountains over the winters, led to vegetation growing that then did die off during this dry period and kind of contributed to making things worse. And that phenomenon now is being called 'Hydroclimate Whiplash'.
Seth Larson: Hydroclimate Whiplash?
Anita van Breda: So, you get wet, a lot of growth, and then you have dry, and real dry, and hot. And it's back and forth, so it's those two extremes that's contributing to increasing the risk for a, what in that place is a natural hazard becoming a disaster.
Seth Larson: Yeah, I hadn't heard that term yet, but I guess it's instructive to know that it's a, it's a phenomenon that's likely to become recurring enough that someone decided it needed a name.
Anita van Breda: Yes.
Seth Larson: What can Los Angeles and other communities say, you're, uh, accept that you're not necessarily an expert on California specifically. You're not, you haven't been on the ground in Los Angeles, I know that. But you... from your experience in the Indian Ocean and I know you've been in a lot of other recovery zones after really terrible events. What can communities that go through disasters like this do in the aftermath? How can they mitigate the systemic risks that contribute to making these events more traumatic and more impactful?
Anita van Breda: My observation is, it's an all of society response that's required. It's people working together and looking across the landscape, looking across their society, looking across their economy and understanding how those different issues are related and how to rebuild in a way that's going to be safer, more secure and more prosperous for the future. So, we don't want to build back the same vulnerabilities that existed before the event. So, it is an opportunity to look across all of society and landscape and see where there are intervention points to reduce risk for our own families and homes, our own communities, and our, our area, broadly speaking.
And so, it's not just a problem for engineers to solve or a problem for politicians to solve, or government officials to solve. It's really all of us, and the role that we play in the contribution that we can make to our society. Whether we're ecologists or journalists or media people or artists or lawyers or policymakers, we all have to be a part of that process of thinking through how do we collectively reduce risk, based on this event and what we've learned over the past in order to make all of us more safe and secure for the future.
Seth Larson: And what's, what are some of the specific factors that you might be looking for as an expert in this field? In terms of things that could be done or should be done differently in the future? Is it the way we approach infrastructure? Is it the building code? Is it having more redundancy in, in terms of response capability?
I really don't know, but I'd be curious to kind of here what, where your mind goes when you're looking at these things.
Anita van Breda: Well, it's all those things that you mentioned. As well as we always need to advocate for the role that nature and the environment can play.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Anita van Breda: In this issue, even in urban areas. Because it's really hard to find a healthy, safe, prospering community without a healthy, safe and prospering natural system, as part of the social and the environmental safety net, for these communities.
So, environmentalist and environmental expertise should be a part of that process of assessing what, what is the damage to what and where, and then how do we rebuild and reconstruct thinking what's going to be most safe, for all of those sectors going forward. And doing that collectively as much as possible.
Seth Larson: And what kind of natural systems might be most helpful, I mean, let's take the example of wildfires, what type of natural systems are most helpful to mitigate future wildfires?
Anita van Breda: Well, there's all kinds of ways to manage forests for changing conditions. And then, the challenge I'm sure you have heard of is this wildland urban interface, right? The so called the WUI. And so, building, having infrastructure that's built to codes that are most safe in those places, of course, is important. And having the policy to back that up, having the technology and the funding to back up that approach is important. Doing restoration work in forests or chaparral areas or in wetlands, that gives that natural environment the best possibility of surviving and thriving in a changing climate, focusing on native species or species that are most adaptable to those changing conditions that, of course, would help reduce the Fire risk in places like that. But even in hardcore urban areas like Los Angeles, we need, still need natural parts of the environment to have clean air and to have clean water and to have the psychological benefits of having greenery even in urban spaces. There's a lot of creativity that can be applied to rebuilding even in urban areas, and there are groups and organizations and individuals that have that experience and expertise that can be brought in as part of the conversation going forward.
Seth Larson: Yeah. Are there good examples of communities that have gone through other disasters in the past and have taken smart approaches to rebuilding that you feel are worth emulating? I'd love to hear about some of those.
Anita van Breda: Yeah, there are. And they're all different, every community is different, every response is different. So, I've, talked before in other places about the experience we had years ago in Nepal, following an earthquake. Where a very deliberate attempt was made to assess the impact on the environment as part of that process, and to build rebuilding the natural systems into the process and into policy.
There are areas within the US after, Superstorm Sandy in the northeast, more recently in Florida after hurricanes where institutions are looking at how to rebuild wetlands and living shorelines and other parts of the natural infrastructure, that can help reduce risk to the physical infrastructure, as well as the people and the economies in those places.
So, it is advancing, this notion that nature and the environment is part of disaster recovery and reconstruction. But there's more to do, and we have to, in my view, update our policies and procedures to help support that and facilitate that. And then also, you know, train the next generation of engineers and urban planners and land use planners and folks working in agriculture, to think about how we can do our work in a more integrated way that helps to reduce risk to future extreme events.
Seth Larson: You know, I had an opportunity last year to interview, one of our colleagues from WWF Pakistan, who was talking about the efforts in that country to rebuild and respond to the tragic floods that happened in 2022, which were really widespread and really devastating. And he talked about how, you know, a whole generation of engineers in Pakistan and I think all over the world, were really brought up to think about responses to these types of, types of events being in the form of physical built infrastructure. If there's floods, then build pipes or culverts to drain or to divert the water. If there's a storm surge, build a seawall to block that.
But more and more, I think, people who are really thinking about this stuff now are coming to understand that the environment is one of our best allies in the fight against these kind of events and things like, you know mangroves or, grassy areas along the shore can be really great buffers against storm surges in coastal areas.
And nature can play all different roles in different types of places. It's like you said, very specific to where you are in every community it is going to have a little bit of a different answer. But those nature-based solutions are becoming more and more prominent alongside still some physically built infrastructure solutions. And combining those and understanding which ones can be the most impactful is really important.
Anita van Breda: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think you're familiar with our natural and nature-based flood management program, and guidebook and training program that we have for exactly that same reason.
So, our natural and nature-based flood risk management program really works to try to integrate what we call a hybrid approach and include natural infrastructure, as well as hard or grey infrastructure and we get what we call co-benefits from that, right?
So, you can use nature to help absorb and manage floodwater but then you get benefits from either recreational areas or cleaner water as part of that process. It's also very helpful and engineers will admit that engineers can build things for certain specs. And they're very good at that, and they're very focused on that.
But as things change, we get more or less water, it helps to have that natural infrastructure to be more adaptable, so in combination it is where we see we get some of the bigger benefits.
Seth Larson: Yeah, that's really interesting. So, Anita, I don't want to take up too much of your time, and I'll let you go with just one last question.
Every year, it seems like we're getting scarier and scarier signals from the planet that extreme weather events and natural hazards from fires to hurricanes to floods, they're becoming more frequent and more severe and the science behind climate change is telling us that this trend is not going to go away. And even if the world meets its goal of getting to net zero by 2050, we're going to see a lot of volatility for this foreseeable future. So, I wanted to ask one last question, which is that if you could give community leaders around the world, one piece of advice about how to prepare for our shared climate future, what would that be?
Anita van Breda: That's really interesting question. I'm going to expand a little bit, though, beyond community leaders. I think all of us in our individual homes, our individual families and our communities need to get ready for this type of change. We need to be thinking in advance, if something were to happen here in this place, how would I, as a member of this local community, envision the future?
And start talking about that amongst your family, your neighborhood, your civic society organizations, your local government officials. How would you think about what's important to you from a social perspective, from a cultural perspective, from a historical perspective, from a physical infrastructure perspective, from a natural infrastructure perspective? What is important to you, what do you value? And get to know your other neighborhood community members, civic society organizations, and talk this through.
If you are fortunate that no extreme event ever happens, that time spent thinking through what is important is still valuable. It's very hard in the aftermath of a crisis to have those kinds of conversations. But it's so important to the rebuilding process to, if possible, do that in advance. Get to know the other groups in your neighborhood and in your local area and talk through these things so that you're better prepared to work together.
If there's an unfortunate extreme event to rebuild a safe and secure future for you, your family, your neighbors, and your community. So, yes, of course, there's a role for local government officials, but it's not just them. It's all of us as individuals.
Seth Larson: I think that's really well said and a great point to end on. So, Anita van Breda, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk to us and thank you for your expertise and have a great day.
Anita van Breda: Thank you, Seth. It's a pleasure talking to you.
Seth Larson: Thanks again to Anita for joining me in the show today. The most recent wildfires in Los Angeles were a real tragedy, and our hearts go out to all those who were affected. As LA continues the process of rebuilding and reimagining the future for the communities that were destroyed, I hope this episode provided some guidance about some of the factors that need to be considered, and what a successful rebuilding process might look like.
And ultimately, since nearly every community across the globe is likely to face new challenges from climate change in the years to come, I think there's a lot we can all learn from Anita's expertise and experience. For now, thank you all for listening and together, let's keep building a more sustainable future. Thank you.