After California fires, quick rebuild could put homes at risk again
California leaders have promised a speedy rebuilding process after the fires. But experts say neighborhoods must be built differently to avoid future fires.
As wildfires continue to smolder in Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are both promising a speedy rebuilding of the thousands of destroyed homes.
“This is no time for urban planning exercising. That’ll delay it by 15 years. We need people back in their houses,” Steve Soboroff, a businessman and former police commissioner tasked with overseeing the city’s rebuilding efforts, said at a news conference on Friday.
But reconstructing Pacific Palisades and other fire-ravaged neighborhoods in their former image could make residents sitting ducks for future blazes, according to urban planners, engineers and disaster management experts. To make communities resilient to wildfires — especially as they become more frequent and intense due to climate change — the experts said it’s essential to restrict development in high-risk areas, create buffer zones between properties and wildland, and space homes farther apart.
“One of the things that people talk about is, don’t let a disaster go to waste. This is the time to change,” said Stephen Miller, a law professor at Northern Illinois University who specializes in land use and sustainable development.
That’s at odds with Soboroff’s emphasis on speed.
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