Consider This from NPR - The Dangers of Grass Fires

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

With the wildfires in Maui contained, the recovery process has begun.The focus has also turned to how the island can prepare for similar disasters in the futureOfficials and experts hope to address Hawaii's emergency alert system, as well as the construction of more fire-resistant homes. But what of the fires themselves? We often hear about forest fires, but the deadliest fire in the US in more than a century was a grass fire. Co-host Ailsa Chang talks to Jeva Lange, who wrote a story called "Most Wildfires Aren't Forest Fires," about how wildfires largely occur in grasslands. Also Rebecca Thiele with Indiana Public Broadcasting reports on how certain native plants can help combat the deadly effects of climate change.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. With the fires in Maui contained, the recovery process has begun. And the focus now is on housing people who have been displaced, identifying the dead, and making plans to rebuild. Also, looking at how the island can prepare for a similar disaster in the future. One measure that especially needs attention, Maui's emergency alert system. Maui's officials did one important thing

as the fire was raging, which was to send an alert to people's phones. Lauren Summer covers climate for NPR, and she told my co-host Elsa Chang that although officials sent out alerts, many Lahaina residents told her they did not receive them. Officials say that the high winds and the flames had taken out the cell towers by then. So that really just left one other option, which was Lahaina's network of sirens. Right. But the big question there was those emergency managers did not turn on those sirens, right? Yeah, exactly. Officials said they felt people would associate them with tsunami warnings and then turning them on would confuse them and make them run into the hills, which was where the flames were coming from. So going forward,

that shift could mean using different sirens that broadcast a warning tone and voice instructions, which some cities already use. Another precaution under consideration, building more fire-resistant homes. California and a handful of other states have focused on that because, you know, wildfires, they send this rain of embers ahead of the fire itself, and those get caught on houses, you know, like on a wood roof or inside a gutter. But what about the fires themselves? Often we hear about and prepare for one kind of fire. Forest fires are getting worse around the globe, burning nearly twice as much tree cover today versus 20 years ago.

And in the past, you might have heeded warnings like these from Smokey Bear. Don't let forest fires be your fault. Make sure your fire is dead out. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. But consider this. The Maui wildfire, the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century, was a grass fire. And while grass fires have not gained much attention in the past, they pose an increasing threat. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Thursday, August 24th.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. IU makes bold

investments in the future of bioscience and cybersecurity, cultivates visionary work in the arts and humanities, and prepares students to become global citizens by teaching more languages than any other university in the country. Indiana University. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at IU.edu. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation, working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems. More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org. to be just another routine grass fire? As you are about to see, such a mindset is a mistake. When we think of destructive wildfires, we might think of dense forests going up in smoke. But the West Maui wildfires were largely fueled by dry, non-native grass. Jeeva Lang wrote about this in

a story for the climate and energy news site Heatmap titled Most Wildfires Aren't Forest Fires. And she spoke to my co-host Elsa Chang. So most wildfires are actually in the grasslands, you write. What kind of proportions are we looking at here? In a study of western states between 1984 and 2020, this looked at 11 states on the west coast, only 35 percent of fires were actually in forests. So that's a lot of fires in grasslands. Right. And are grass fires different from forest fires? I mean, obviously they start in different places, but are grass fires generally more intense or more destructive? Yeah. So I would think of grass fires sort of two ways. They're mechanically different and then psychologically different, if you will. So mechanically different in the sense that they start easily, they burn really fast,

and they burn unpredictably. But they're also psychologically different than forest fires because they're really underestimated. They look like something you could just stomp out or put out with a hose. So both firefighters and residents tend to not really be thinking about them seriously. Okay. Well, you say in your article that grass fires are a growing danger around the U.S. Can you explain why that is? Why is it a growing danger? So one of the things I hadn't realized when I started covering this story was that invasive grasses were the fuel behind the really dangerous and deadly fire in Maui, but they're also a problem in the western

United States. There's European grasses that have been introduced to these landscapes for a variety of reasons that have now taken a foothold. They're out-competing native plants and they're spreading. And by one estimate, invasive grasses more than triple a region's susceptibility to wildfire. They're like a wick in the landscape for fire to spread into areas where it doesn't naturally belong as part of the ecosystem. So that's like deserts, also urban environments. Urban environments. I mean, do you see grass fires tend to erupt closer to cities and towns? Yeah. So some of the scariest recent U.S. wildfires have been grass fires. There's Maui, of course, but also in 2021, there was the Marshall Fire in Boulder. And this does not look like an area that you would think of as being a wildfire danger zone.

The largest fires in both Nevada and Texas's histories were also grassland fires. So these are all over the western United States and creeping closer and closer to areas where we've built out into what's referred to as the wild and urban interface. Yeah. Well, what can communities do to better protect themselves from the danger of grass fires? Like what practical steps can they take? What I hear over and over again from wildfire professionals I speak with is that CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service, agencies like these, need to stop prioritizing suppression and let good fires burn. And if we were to bring back farmlands around urban areas, admittedly challenging land use issues always are, but that would bring a buffer back. And then one last option would be figuring out a way to keep grass shorter. But you can't really be like mowing these hillsides. They're

rocky, they're steep. So one idea is something called strategic grazing, which I love that term, but it's what it sounds like. Goats. Exactly. Yes. Goats, cattle, sheep, animals out in the landscape that are keeping the grass under control. That was Jeeva Lang, a staff writer at Heatmap, speaking to Elsa Chang. In the fight against the deadly effects of climate change, we won't just need animals. Rebecca Thiel of Indiana Public Broadcasting says native plants can help too. Aja Yassir's yard in Gary, Indiana, is full of flowers, food, and medicines. Many of these plants are indigenous.

She picks some herbs and nettles in the yard to feed to her ducks. Yassir and her husband bought this once-vacant lot in 2016, just a few months after her youngest daughter passed away. Before they even moved in with their two kids, Yasir would travel to and from Illinois every day, building up the sandy soil with leaves, cardboard, compost, and wood chips. That was the only way I can get through it. And so it's been like an asylum for me. It's been an emotional release. It's also been a way to feed my family.

It's been a lot for us. But not everybody liked the look of Yassir's yard. She got a citation from the city in 2017 and another the following year. After a year-long court battle, the last one was finally dropped. It's been exhausting. The whole thing has been absolutely exhausting. Yassir isn't alone. Homeowners with native gardens from Florida and Maryland to Missouri and Kentucky have gotten slapped with fines or even had their yards mowed without permission. The reason? Taller native plants can

get mistaken for weeds. Many cities don't allow weeds to grow above a certain height and they don't have the time or staff to find out what's what. But native plants have a lot of benefits for the planet. For one, they keep the land cooler. Indiana University biology professor Heather Reynolds says they use heat from their environment to pull water up from the soil and out their leaves. It's a process that actually removes energy from the system, thus cooling the air. It's the exact same principle as sweating. Native plants also do more to prevent flooding than a lawn. They have longer roots, which keep the soil in place and help it absorb more water.

Those roots also trap more carbon dioxide, too. Then there's all of those high-maintenance things you need for a lawn that you don't need for native plants. They require little, if any, fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation, and of course they aren't going to require mowing. All of these inputs generate greenhouse gas emissions. Because of these benefits and others, some cities have started to work with homeowners to encourage native plants. This one is an example of a yard that's actually in compliance, yet we get a lot of complaints about it. That's Linda Thompson, a senior environmental planner for the city of Bloomington, Indiana. If the city gets a complaint

about weeds, but the homeowner says they're native plants. It's Thompson's job to go find out. She says she can identify a lot of plants already, but when she's stumped, she uses an app. Looks like it is a Chinese clematis, so I'll have to go back to the office and look that up. Bloomington changed its ordinance to define a weed as an invasive plant, a plant that can spread out of control and prevent other plants from growing. Thompson says homeowners in Bloomington can plant almost anything they want in their yards, as long as it's not invasive and doesn't block traffic sight lines or sidewalks. I searched all over the place for a definition for weed,

and there isn't one except a plant that's growing somewhere where you don't want it to grow. It's all a matter of aesthetics, and the city does not enforce aesthetics. But even if your local government allows it, your homeowners association might not. Homeowners that want to plant natives may have to negotiate with their HOA, or even join the board to change the rules. That was Indiana Public Broadcasting's Rebecca Thiel. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.