Unit 1 Complete Essay

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Bethel University *

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4650

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Geography

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Jun 5, 2024

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docx

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4

Uploaded by JudgeNeutronCrow48

There are four stages in the life cycle of a crisis and they are preconditions, the trigger event, the crisis itself, and the postcrisis (William Rick Crandall et al., 2013). Preconditions are a set of events that lead up to the trigger event or even the actual crisis. Wildfire season occurs every year especially in California but the Accuweather meteorologists predicted that between 400,000 and 1 million acres would burn despite the fact that California had a very wet winter and snowpack (Brinkley , 2023). California has a very long history when it comes to wildfires with the earliest event occurring in 1889 when the Santiago Canyon Fire occurred burning around 300,000 acres of land; but the official fire records do not start until 1932 when the Maatilija Fire burned around 220,000 acres in Ventura County (Western Fire Chiefs Association, 2022). The federal government spends over 1.5 billion dollars a year to help fight fires across the United States (Taylor, 2021). There are many preconditions that allow for the wildfires to start but the number one reason is climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the state also happens to go through droughts that create warmer temperatures which effects low precipitation and snowpack which allows the fires to spread much more rapidly than if the season is wetter (California Air Resources Board, 2023). The triggering event is the point where the crisis escalates and this will cause the equilibrium to go from normal to out of sync causing chaos. There are many triggering events that have lead to the wildfires but heat waves and droughts are believed to be the most often reason for the fires to occur. The crisis is the escalation of the events to where it creates the most damage to the people involved in the crisis. The wildfire season began in April of 2023. The postcrisis occurs when the event is over with and those involved should reflect on what was done and how things should have been done to prevent it from happening again. In January 2022 the Forest Service began their 10 year strategy to fight the wildfire crisis as they occur. Among the ideas that came about with the Wildfire Crisis Strategy Roundtables were to improve internal and external communications related to the crisis, to recruit and maintain a workforce that can meet the necessary pace and scale of restoration, update the partnership mechanisms and requirements for funding and implementation, to support the use of fire as an essential tool for the ecosystem resilience, more open and transparent information sharing, help to make the public aware of the benefits of management for forest resiliency, and much more (USDA Forest Service , 2022). There are six stages of crisis management planning and they are to first identify the leadership teams for the crisis, assess the risk, determine the impact of the crisis on the business or society, plan how to respond to the crisis, solidify the plan, and finally review and update the plan (Asana, 2021). The Forest Service has created a 10 year wildfire strategy to identify specific areas that need to be considered when it comes to dealing with wildfires; they are going to put $131 million into 8 states that fuel treatment projects that will help to management wildfires (U.S. Forest Service, 2022). The plan calls for about 20 million acres of national forest and grasslands and 30 million acres of other federal , state, tribal, private, and family land to be treated in order to reduce the risk of wildfire and increase the resilience of the forest for years to come. FEMA also put out information about their summit that they held about how to deal with wildfires which included how to train the firefighters for climate driven increase in wildfires and even starting screening for cancer in firefighters and its prevention (FEMA, 2023). Technology such as the use of the internet or social media did not cause the crisis to become more severe but actually has helped when it comes to the reporting of wildfires. Computers are used to create models of the area so that those fighting the fire can see how the fire will move should the winds change, mapping the terrain as to how it lays and how the fire might move, and this can let the fire fighters determine which path they must take in order to get ahead of the fire; the use of air tankers to
spray suppressant foam or water over the flames, and using helicopters to get firefighters to the place that they need to be (Ferron, 2023). Social media, while used to show the impact of the fire or other event ares, it is used mostly to show where and what kind of need to required to help to rebuild the forest. Unfortunately, the use of social media is often out of balanced to when the event first occurs to what the end results are and the call to help rebuild (Olynk Widmar et al., 2021). Social media can also be used to associate the wildfire area with the same area over time is a great way to keep track of the possibility of wildfires occurring (Boulton et al., 2016). Drpmes and areial surveillance systems are used to detect and monitor conditions in areas that might have a wildfire started in it (Rosencrance, 2021). PEST stands for political-legal, economic, social, and technological analysis of the crisis and is used as a strategic planning and management tool. Wildfires can cause a huge amount of ecological and economic impact on society (Holmes et al., 2008). Politically the wildfire can cause issues with knowing who is it that is going to pay for the costs of the firefighters and items used to put out and control the fires since many times the fire will cross over into other counties or even states. The economics is impacted by the fire since it causes an increase the amount of products that are needed to rebuild the homes and businesses in the fire zone but also including the cost of tree seedlings that must be planted to recover the forest. The fire can destroy the area in national parks that causes less people to come to the park and make use of the services there. The cost of the technology used in fighting fires can be extreme as well. References Asana. (2021, August 16). What Is a Crisis Management Plan? (6 Steps to Create One) • Asana . Asana. https://asana.com/resources/crisis-management-plan Boulton, C. A., Shotton , H., & Williams , H. T. P. (2016, April). Using Social Media to Detect and Locate Wildfires . https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311133785_Using_Social_Media_to_Detect_and_Locate_Wil dfires Brinkley , L. (2023, April 18). What will CA’s wildfire season look like? Here’s when it’s expected to peak, what to know . ABC7 San Francisco. https://abc7news.com/ca-wildfires-bay-area-wildfire-2023- season-drought/13144926/ California Air Resources Board. (2023). Wildfires & Climate Change | California Air Resources Board . Ww2.Arb.ca.gov. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/wildfires-climate-change
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