Graphic by Anjali Rao ’22
BY REILLY DENNEDY ’23
It is wildfire season in California, my home state. At this time last year, my classmates and I had school cancelled due to poor air quality and I wore a mask while working as an outdoor lifeguard. There may be memes and jokes about the severity of the wildfire problem, but that doesn’t mean Californians don’t take this issue seriously. Colonialism and capitalism are the reasons why we see such devastating forest fires in California today, and why the destruction caused by these fires disproportionately impacts the poor and oppressed.
Before California was colonized by the Spanish, Native Americans lived in the regions we now see being burned by wildfires. Although their methods varied, many Native American groups had ways of systematically burning parts of the forest. This both improved growth in the forest — many trees need this burning in the understory in order to grow — and kept dry organic matter from building up and exacerbating the larger forest fires we see today.
When Europeans invaded, they didn’t want their land to burn. Instead of caring for the forest the way they needed, the way they had been thriving for years, they shifted to forest fire suppression. This is the foundation for the wildly destructive burning we see today.
Today, businesses exacerbate these fires. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has a monopoly over utilities in California and is the cause of these wildfires. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has reported that PG&E’s power lines and hardware have started 12 forest fires in the state.
In Mendocino County, trees falling onto power lines started two fires which burned 36,523 acres. Nine people died. The same happened in Napa County, where 51,624 acres were burned and six people died.
Now that PG&E is being sued by fire victims, the company is filing for bankruptcy and is refusing to take accountability. Bankruptcy may seem like a humbling position for such a company, but this is a cop-out for people who have done serious harm. PG&E has billions of dollars in assets. The U.S.’s capitalist system gives power to these companies by allowing them to get away with murder.
The fires spread quickly, faster than firefighters can fight them, due to wind. All of this costs a significant amount as firefighters are paid, on average, around $56,117 a year. According to CNN, California has enlisted “volunteer” prison labor, including incarcerated children, in order to save money. It has to be acknowledged that while working can earn prisoners reduced sentences and money in their commissary accounts, the work isn’t really voluntary and prisoners can’t become firefighters when released. These firefighters are paid two dollars a day and an additional one dollar per hour when fighting fires.
Employing prisoners to fight fires saves California upwards of $90 million a year.
Perhaps the most egregious part of capitalism’s interaction with the Californian community is the growing business of private firefighting. Rich people with expensive homes are high risks for their insurance companies, so their insurance has begun to hire private firefighting services to protect these assets. Most notably, Kim Kardashian tweeted that she had private firefighters as areas surrounding her were being devastated by fires.
The impacts that colonialism and capitalism have upon the issue of wildfires is profound. There are drawbacks to every economic system, but the impacts that capitalism has had for me and my community have been devastating.