Getty Fire

Background Information

The Getty Fire started on October 28, 2019 when a tree branch broke off and landed in power lines during high wind conditions. This led to sparking and arcing of the power lines and ignited the nearby brush (Los Angeles Fire Department). Due to high speed Santa Ana winds, the fire quickly spread along the I-405 freeway. The fire was not 100% contained until November 5, 2019. During this time period, a total of 745 acres in the Los Angeles area were burned, thousands of people fled, 10 homes were destroyed, and 15 residences were damaged. There were no deaths or critical injuries, but there were 5 non-fatal injuries to firefighters, of which over 1000 were needed, along with helicopters and other aircraft, to fight and contain the fire (Wikipedia).

Los Angeles' Fire Protection Practices

In a state as vast as California, there are many different levels of fire management practices that are performed by the state, private companies, and individual landowners. When it comes down to areas that include power lines, companies that supply such services must bear the responsibility of keeping their respective areas clear of any debris and safety hazards that may spark a potential wildfire. For the areas surrounding the Getty Center, this responsibility falls under those of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). It is their duty as a utility department to routinely perform checks and vegetation maintenance on all areas surrounding their power lines by modes of foot, car, and air every twelve months alongside a mid-cycle patrol performed every six months (LADWP, 2019). Despite these routine checks, the Getty Fire still managed to occur due to a branch that traveled from a tree 30 feet away from the utility lines, a distance outside the state mandated clearance requirement. Although this may appear as an event where no one person can be blamed for, it is evident that there are still flaws to California’s fire management systems–especially as the wildfires each year have increased in number and are higher in intensity.

Disparities in Fire Protective Measures

Another far more insidious example of environmental inequities unveiled in the Getty Fire was the complete disregard of domestic workers in evacuation efforts. At every level, the fire response safety nets had gaping "holes [that] immigrants and people of color always seem to fall through".

Wealthy employers failed to notify their employees of the life-threatening dangers in their rush to flee, Spanish-language emergency alerts were delayed, and the officers stationed outside the mandatory evacuation areas continued to let workers enter the zones and endanger themselves after the orders were placed. Most appalling, some workers were ordered to continue working and remain in the line of fire: such demands and retaliation are horrifyingly not prohibited by labor laws. Even in the aftermath of the fire, immigrant laborers are often hired to clean and repair the remains without proper protection, and have no way to recover lost wages (Shyong).

The Getty Fire affected marginalized communities far more than wealthy residents who could afford time and money to evacuate and recover their homes and lives afterwards. In this case, Latine workers faced immense environmental racism as they were forced to bear health and economic hazards their affluent employers did not: and this is just one of many examples of how the impacts of wildfires are vastly skewed based on race and class.

California's Fire Management Practices Since Then

But since the Getty Fire incident, it appears LADWP have made some changes to their approaches to California’s wildfire risks. In April of 2020, the department published the LADWP Wildfire Mitigation Plan, a comprehensive plan created following a California Senate Bill to improve the overall wildfire prevention practices performed by the LADWP. In this detailed plan, LADWP included several sections to specify different strategies that would be implemented, such as redesigning infrastructures, improving vegetation management, and increasing inspection and maintenance efforts. They have also created a newly updated “Fire Threat Map” that indicates the different fire risk tier levels for LADWP’s service area (LADWP, 2020). Similar plans have been created across other power line owning companies, and each company’s efforts in doing so is hoped to contribute to a greater preparedness for wildfires from power line accidents.

In addition to changes approached by specific companies, the state of California has also come up with a separate plan, known as the California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, organized by Governor Newsom in January 2021. At the state level, the government now has more flexibility in ensuring that every land-owning agency will play their part in expanding their wildfire management practices. Specified strategies for the state’s program include:

“(1) scaling-up prescribed fire and fuel reduction programs; (2) expanding collaboration with neighboring landowners and agencies to promote resilient and healthy forests at a landscape scale; (3) increasing outreach and education to share best practices that support ecosystem services; and (4) implementing an effective monitoring program to gather information on the ecological benefits of these practices” (Forest Management Task Force, 2021).

Approaching the wildfire problem across different levels of government allows California to devise many strategies for wildfire prevention. Efforts by the state government, private companies, and landowning individuals become the core of future wildfire conservation for the upcoming future.

What can be done to recover from the forest fires?

With climate change causing more fires, at least one in 12 California homes is at high risk of wildfire damage. Fires are part of California's housing crises as they destroy homes and displace people. They cause financial problems, environmental problems and insurance problems.

First, we have to acknowledge that wildfire recovery is a steady process that won't happen overnight. Patience is needed to attain the goals of renewal, rehabilitation and re-vegetation. Implementing wildfire recovery strategies and helping people be aware of what these strategies are is a key factor for recovery.

• First of all, if there has been damage to human beings and/or their homes, contacting your local disaster service can be a good idea to help you find a place to stay, find medication or food. Organizations such as Red Cross or the Salvation Army can be helpful during such crises. Also, it is important to listen to community members who have been affected by the fires to increase the welfare of these impacted communities.
• Landscape-scale forest restoration is important for recovery. After the hazard, it is important to protect the areas of live forests. This landscape-level restoration treatments for unburned forests help to build resilience for possible future fires that can occur in these forests. This way, pre-fire restoration would be more cost effective than post-fire hazard mitigation.
• Water supply protection is another strategy that can be used for recovery. Watershed, which is a vital water source is in the risk of increased runoff and erosion. This can impact the water quality and reservoir capacity. To restore watershed resiliency, meadow and stream channel restoration, private land conservation and management can be helpful to enhance the resilience of our water supplies to fires.
• Strategic reforestation can especially be efficient in high-severity burn patches because in these areas no live trees to provide seeds. These severly burned forests would not prosper without any help. We can give these forests life with replanting strategies. Reforesting requires seed collection, seedling nurseries and planting. It is important to effectively implement these strategies for regaining our prosperous forests.
• Post-fire recover of burned tress can be a good strategy for strategic reforestation. These burned trees can be used for lumber production or fuel to produce renewable energy. This way we can process dead trees. Permanent financing and stewardship are important for wood utilization infrastructure because these factors are important for having stable investors working for the strategy.
• Furthermore, it is cruical to enforce recovery investments for restoring fire impacted sacred sites and sites that have biocultural values. Many Indigenous communities lose their culturally important venues which is a tragic destruction for them as they lose their identity.

References

California, State of. “Five Wildfire Recovery Strategies for the Sierra Nevada.” Sierra Nevada Conservancy, 16 May 2022, https://sierranevada.ca.gov/five-wildfire-recovery-strategies-for-the-sierra-nevada/. 

Forest Management Task Force. (2021). California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. California Department of Water Resources, Public Affairs Office, Creative Services Branch.  https://fmtf.fire.ca.gov/media/cjwfpckz/californiawildfireandforestresilienceactionplan.pdf 

Galperin, Ron. (2019, Nov 20). It Only Takes a Spark. LA Controller.  https://lacontroller.org/audits-and-reports/dwps-wildfire-prevention/ 

Gammon, Katharine. (2019, Oct 28). How LA’s Getty Center built a fire-proof fortress for priceless art. The Guardian.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/28/california-wildfires-getty-fire-museum-art 

Getty Fire. (2022, Apr 15). Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Fire 

Getty Fire. (2019, Nov 5). Los Angeles Fire Department.  https://www.lafd.org/news/getty-fire 

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. (2019). LADWP Statement Regarding the Getty Fire Preliminary Investigation. LADWP.  https://www.ladwpnews.com/ladwp-statement-regarding-the-getty-fire-preliminary-investigation/ 

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. (2020). LADWP Wildfire Mitigation Plan. LADWP.  https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-power/AboutUs-Power-Wildfire?_adf.ctrl-state=dljrxv1h7_4&src=QHA184&_afrLoop=501813760977640&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=null#%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D501813760977640%26src%3DQHA184%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3D138q37pgdh_4 

Mejia, B., Ormseth, M., & Fry, H. (2019, October 29). Getty fire spreads in elite enclaves, a celebrity-studded spectacle of L.A.'s inherent dangers. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/getty-fire-burns-homes-los-angeles 

Shying, F. (2019, November 12). Column: Why did no one warn the housekeepers about the getty fire? Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-04/wildfires-immigrants-housekeepers 

Washington Post. (2019, Oct 28). 'Absolutely Crazy': Drivers share video of Getty Fire roaring along Los Angeles freeway. [Video]. Youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyJMEJoJKp8 

“Wildfire Recovery.” University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Recovery/.