More planning for fire prevention can help—plus recognizing the risks of living in locations prone to natural disasters, says a professor of urban planning

The fire in Pacific Palisades on January 11. “We as humans have a long history of forgetting, and this is not something that’s unique to Los Angeles,” says Justin Hollander. “When disaster strikes, over the ensuing months and years, it’s still top of mind. But over time, people forget.” Photo: AP Photo/Eric Thayer
The wind-driven wildfires that began on January 7 in Los Angeles—and continue to burn—have destroyed thousands of homes and killed some two dozen people, and more residential areas are threatened.
It’s not the first time that wildfires have destroyed homes and neighborhoods in Southern California, despite efforts to build safeguards. It’s part of the risk of living in what is essentially desert, says Justin Hollander, a professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.
Tufts Now spoke with Hollander to learn more about how urban planning can affect responses to natural disasters, and what keeps people living in danger zones.
Do cities like Los Angeles take into consideration potential environmental disasters like wildfires and earthquakes when they are doing urban planning?
I don’t have a lot of firsthand experience in California, but I know that wildfires have been a big part of Los Angeles planning for a long time. This is not something that they’ve ignored—they have integrated concerns about it into different types of environmental emergency planning.
But the question raises the point that even if you do plan for it, that doesn’t mean the plan is going to be implemented. A lot of plans are built on sound science and derived from extensive community outreach, but then just end up sitting on the proverbial shelf. There needs to be the political will to implement these kinds of plans.
What are some potential solutions?
I’ve been doing a lot of research and collaboration around promoting green infrastructure, which is basically investment in more plant life in the urban landscape. It can make a place more resilient to different types of threats.
By comparison, gray infrastructure is things like sewers and roads—such as stormwater management processes that we deal with in cities. Green infrastructure would be about using plant life to better manage a lot of that, including introducing native grasses that can grow with very little maintenance. It’s an exciting movement to try to decrease the urban heat island effect, and it can make a place less vulnerable to fires.
Creating what are called “new towns” may also be a partial answer to effective planning for wildfires. They would be built outside of major urban areas, with urban qualities, parks and public amenities, and transportation networks that prioritizes pedestrians, bikes, and public transit. With devastation strewn across Los Angeles county, a “new town” approach to rebuilding could mean that fire prevention techniques could be integrated into the city design proactively. One example would be use of water features like moats, which seem to be protecting the Getty Center Museum.
In some areas of Los Angeles, over the decades, people’s homes have been lost to fires, but they simply rebuild in the same location and face the same threat—much like Floridians building and rebuilding in hurricane zones. How much do you think people learn from past natural disasters?
We as humans have a long history of forgetting, and this is not something that’s unique to Los Angeles or Florida. When disaster strikes, over the ensuing months and years, it’s still top of mind. But over time, people forget.
And don’t forget that there are quite a lot of prominent earthquake fault lines that run through Los Angeles as well. The last major earthquake was 30 years ago in Northridge—January 17, 1994. A freeway collapsed and there was mass devastation everywhere.
So why would you continue building? Why would people live in a place that is earthquake prone? Part of the reason is because even if that danger is remembered—which usually it’s not—it’s outweighed by all of the other amenities that might be offered, whether it’s views, access to the water, proximity to jobs, and especially after a big disaster, low land values.
People moving there are all making risk calculations, and they think the reward is higher than the potential cost.
And it’s not just in California and Florida.
There are threats and hazards everywhere. Here in New England, there have been several dozen absolutely devastating hurricanes in recent decades, but people keep coming back. I had a neighbor who grew up in New Bedford and talked about how when she was a little kid in 1938 her community was just completely devastated by a hurricane. Yet it didn’t take long for everyone to come back.
And mark my words, New Bedford will eventually be flattened again by a hurricane, as will basically every coastal community in Massachusetts. But that risk is considered by most to be relatively low.
I think that in Los Angeles, the fire risk certainly has been elevated, but relative to the advantages of being in one of the great metropolises in the world, people have made that calculation to live there.
After this disaster in Los Angeles, do you think the local government will implement building codes that would make it safer?
One thing that history teaches us is that there have been useful responses to these disasters. Building codes have evolved over decades—maybe even centuries—to make the spread of fires through cities a lot less likely. Cities, especially in more developed countries, are much more resilient today because of past disasters.
I think that city authorities can make some improvements to local policies to try and reduce some of these risks. The new town approach is part of the answer, to hardwire water features, strategic vegetation, and green infrastructure into land development plans for high-risk environments.
There have been complaints about availability of water for fire hydrants—codes can also be updated to make sure that those kinds of protections are in place.
To some extent, we have a good track record of learning from our mistakes and making some adjustments. Do we completely solve the problem? No. But incrementally, I think that we have a good record of being able to at least respond, so that the next time there’s this devastation, it’s maybe not quite as bad.