![]() Four centuries later this inversion layer was fingered as the main cause of Los Angeles' infamous smog-and the reason why, today, the world has vastly cleaner cars.īut their basin's unique geography and inversion layer have done little to alter Angelinos' thinking about fire. Subsequent Spanish, and later Mexican, ranchers in the area continued the practice.Ĭabrillo also noted, incidentally, that an inversion layer of hot air blowing out of the desert overlaying colder air blowing in from the ocean had trapped the pollution from the fires to below a few hundred feet. The Native Americans had learned to torch the hillsides to replenish the vegetation and provide better hunting. In 1542, when the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first sailed up the coast of California to where Los Angeles is situated today, one of the key observations he recorded was the plumes of smoke from fires burning in the Santa Monica Mountains. The shrub's hardier seeds then get carried aloft by the smoke and dispersed by the wind. Inedible to all but hardiest of creatures such as goats, the only way it can propagate itself is through providing enough oily fuel to catch alight. The prickly chaparral is a typical example of a tinderbox in search of a flint. In reality, fire is an integral part of nature, the mechanism by which much of vegetation regenerates itself. Fewer still vote for bond issues needed to buy more fire-fighting aircraft, such as Bombardier's miraculous “Superscooper” amphibian.īut worst of all is an attitude of mind that seeks to deny the very existence of fire-and is then mortified when it happens. Few home-owners clear the brush around their homes. But the measures half-heartedly taken are often counter-productive. Now the aim is to prevent wildfires at all cost. Or so it used to be until housing developers started carving up the hillsides. The hot, dry winds worked as bellows to fan the flames.Īll perfectly normal. Sparks from fallen electricity cables lit the fuse. ![]() The hillsides, with their undergrowth of waxy chaparral and uncleared thickets of dead trees felled by the drought's plague of pine beetles, were powder kegs waiting to explode. ![]()
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