JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
People fleeing the Palisades fire in Los Angeles found the roads jammed with traffic. As the flames approached, some abandoned their cars, and those empty vehicles had to be pushed out of the way by a bulldozer. The Pacific Palisades has few roads in and out. That's a situation many other communities are in, and many of those communities are also lagging in evacuation planning. Lauren Sommer from NPR's climate desk is here to talk about the lessons from these fires. Hey there.
LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Lauren, I mean, tens of thousands of folks have been told to evacuate in the past few days. Tell us what made this particularly challenging.
SOMMER: Yeah. The main thing has just been the speed of these fires. High winds made them spread incredibly fast, and, you know, that meant there was very little time to get people out. And for some people, there's still this expectation that firefighters will be able to stop it or slow it down. I spoke to Michele Steinberg at the National Fire Protection Association about that.
MICHELE STEINBERG: California has some of the largest numbers and best-trained firefighters probably in the world. Even with that, there simply are not enough people and resources to attack all these fires simultaneously and to deal with the fact that the wind is pushing them that fast. That is the reality.
SOMMER: And then the other problem is that some of these neighborhoods have very few ways in or out, and so the roads quickly get clogged.
SUMMERS: And Lauren, as we mentioned, there are lots of other communities that face these types of bottlenecks in evacuating. Is that right?
SOMMER: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely hundreds, if not thousands of communities in the U.S., according to experts. And as the climate gets hotter, fires are spreading faster. So if people are stuck in traffic, they're exposed to the spreading fire, and there's a real risk of losing lives. It's what happened in Lahaina, Maui, in that wildfire. It happened in the Camp Fire in 2018 in Paradise, California. Studies show that there's just this real patchwork of evacuation planning. Some communities have done a lot, but many others don't have enough financial resources.
SUMMERS: So given all that, what should communities be doing to make sure they're able to safely evacuate folks if they need to?
SOMMER: Yeah. I mean, many communities are starting to use software to analyze where these choke points are. You need money to do that, of course. They're also staging evacuations. So they're going zone by zone, so there aren't too many people leaving all at once. Communities need to make sure they're using emergency text alerts - right? - to send those evacuation orders, but they need other ways of getting the word out if cell service goes down. And, you know, the hardest thing to do is to create more evacuation routes by building new roads because that often means you have to go through private property. Both Paradise, California, and Lahaina, Maui, they're looking at that right now, and it's a very slow and expensive process.
SUMMERS: We also know, though, that evacuation, it comes down to individual choices. So what should people do to prepare?
SOMMER: Yeah. You know, I actually spoke to one person who evacuated the Palisades fire, and he said it was a pretty calm experience. Ryan Ulyate lives in Topanga Canyon, and he had already made a checklist ahead of time about what to take so he'd be ready.
RYAN ULYATE: Yesterday, I went back to my checklist and took the important things out of the house, put them in the car, got in the car and said goodbye to my house. And I'm hoping that when I return that there will be a house there.
SOMMER: You know, Ulyate has worked for years to keep his - help his community prepare for fires, 'cause he's part of the Topanga Canyon Fire Safe Council, which is a volunteer effort. They educate the public on how to clear vegetation to create that buffer zone around the house. And since Topanga Canyon only has one road in and out, they helped lead this project to clear the flammable vegetation along the road, so it's less dangerous during an evacuation.
ULYATE: Our fire-prone areas are also beautiful areas, but we've realized that with that opportunity to live in a place like that comes a responsibility, and that means you've got to do more.
SUMMERS: That's Lauren Sommer from NPR's climate desk with that reporting. Thank you, Lauren.
SOMMER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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