লস অ্যাঞ্জেলেস পুনর্নির্মাণের সাথে সাথে, ভবিষ্যতের আগুন প্রতিরোধ করার জন্য ডিজাইন করা ল্যান্ডস্কেপিং নিয়ম নিয়ে লড়াই চলছে
Apart from the occasional skeleton of a collapsed building or new construction site, Pacific Palisades—the affluent, high-elevation coastal region of Los Angeles that burned in wildfires in January—remains mostly empty. Much of the debris, rubble, soil, and plant life has been cleared and removed by teams of Army Engineers. Trees are among the few elements of the area that remain as they were, a remnant of the community’s long obsession with them, which has included famous residents such as Abbot Kinney and Will Rogers. In an area now devoid of landmarks, these survivors (an estimated 75% of the street trees survived the fire) tell a story and connect residents to the past. (Photo: David Swanson/Getty Images) “I used to fill up every water bottle I had and drive back up to the Palisades for an hour and water my Jacaranda tree in my yard,” says Vicki Warren, secretary of the governing board of the Palisades Forestry Commission, of her efforts to nurture the large, purple-flowered tree in her yard. “People do things like that because it’s therapeutic to take care of something alive near the home.”
From top: Pacific Palisades, California, in 2016 and 2025 (Photos: Julia Beverly/Getty Images, Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
For many Palisades residents, the landscape has become a flashpoint surrounding questions of reconstruction and larger questions of resilience. At community meetings, many residents have opposed proposals to mandate more fire-resistant yards. They are particularly opposed to a concept called Zone Zero, which would force the creation of an ember-resistant, noncombustible barrier around homes and would require the removal of a large number of plants and trees (in some cases, those trees that survived the fire). Aided by state fire officials and the insurance industry, the Zero Zone is a concept that has been embraced by the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, which has accelerated the process of drafting a Zero Zone regulation for areas at high fire risk, at the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed a declaration in February to speed up the process and have rules set by the end of the year. (Photo: David Card/Palisades Forestry Commission)
The regulatory tension has made the battles over rebuilding and replanting a growing issue for pre-fire design emulations in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other high-risk areas of Los Angeles County. Some residents, used to dense foliage, green yards, and the privacy these plantings afford, fear the effort to regulate the landscape to the degree that the government is proposing. In a statement last month, Traci Park, a member of the Los Angeles City Council whose district includes the Palisades, called “one-size-fits-all regulations” an “overburden” and “built on incomplete science, implemented without local input or context.” And it’s not just an issue for areas affected by the January 2025 wildfires. Approximately 17% of the state—including portions of the capitol and large parts of Los Angeles—will be impacted by pending statewide regulations and recent updates to fire hazard maps. With the insurance industry backing the idea and the risk of wildfires increasing, regulations such as these may proliferate to other states (Kauai County, Hawaii, and Boulder, Colorado, passed similar rules earlier this year.) (Photo: David Card/Palisades Forestry Commission)
The Zone Zero idea has come from research into what causes fires in the state and efforts to make inter-fire. area and urban, which are the areas where the majority of wildfires start and spread. Since wildfires tend to spread to homes because of flying embers and smoking trees and plants, the Zero Zone method attempts to eliminate fire risk and potential sources of ignition near dwellings. Recent research has shown that hardening homes and enacting Zone Zero could halve the number of structures damaged during wildfires. “Vegetation is also super important, because all vegetation will burn at sufficient duration and heat,” says Kimiko Barrett, lead wildfire researcher at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group focused on community development. “I think it gets difficult when you’re talking about big trees. And, you know, some tree species are going to be more fire tolerant than others, and that’s where it starts to get a little confusing.” (Photo: David Card/Palisades Forestry Commission)
More safety or moonscape? Tony Andersen, the executive officer of the Forestry and Fire Protection Council, says some voting homeowners oppose the regulations. To him, it’s clear that the status quo isn’t working, and these increasing guidelines, arrived at through years of research and community feedback, could be a critical tool in the toolbox for preventing fire damage. “There’s a lot of science that supports it, that guides it, that directs it, and acts as kind of a framework for what we’re working toward,” he says. Research suggests that implementing Zone Zero in high fire-risk areas of Los Angeles County would require nearly 400,000 alterations, and opponents argue that such changes could have a significant impact on shade, wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and urban heat islands (and cooling costs). The city’s Community Forestry Advisory Committee released a report estimating that Zone Zero recommendations would have an average impact of $13,000 per household. A meeting held by the Forestry Council in Pasadena on September 18 to solicit opinions on the proposed Zone Zero regulations received somewhat negative responses from homeowners. “They’re talking about destroying our urban canopy, hundreds of acres of trees for uncertain benefit,” says Cindy Hubach, a member of the Los Angeles Community Forestry Advisory Committee. Many residents of the Palisades and other high-fire areas that could be impacted by the rules have balked, citing costs, environmental impacts, and some researchers’ uncertainty about the Zone Zero recommendations. They are angry about rules calling for reducing shrubs, hedges, and bushes; tightly pruned trees and bare lots, especially in tight urban areas, could transform once-lush yards into what some have described as an alien moonscape. Some opponents argue that the rules don’t discriminate among tree species, some of which are oilier and more combustible. Another argument revolves around the idea that well-watered trees may be a better means of preventing flare-ups (and, of course, how that gets tested or observed). Warren, of the Palisades Forestry Commission, says there are plenty of researchers who argue that well-watered plants and trees can protect homes and screen embers, and she doubts the notion that the science has been settled on the matter. Palisades resident Traci Price, who owns the landscaping company American Growers, says that the hedges on her property prevented burning embers and flames from reaching her home, and she believes these proposed regulations would be overkill. Properly maintained trees and plants can protect structures. “Apply Zone Zero? Let’s start with every city/county/state/federal building, and every library and post office first,” she wrote in a public comment about the regulations. “In a year we will be reporting increased spending and utility bills for more air conditioning in absence of shade. More power outages due to an already strained power grid. Zone Zero removes life-saving protections.” (Photo: David Card/Palisades Forestry Commission)
Cultural Shift in California Landscapes A bill passed in 2020, SB 3074, mandated that the state create Zone Zero recommendations, but the governor’s pushing to finalize its rollout this year has created more anxiety. Also, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), an insurance industry-backed nonprofit that researches building codes, safety standards, and resilience, has enthusiastically backed the idea, leading some opponents to claim it’s an effort for the industry to mitigate losses. This renewed focus on these issues comes as homeowners, who have endured months of wrangling with insurance companies to get their payouts, architect plans, and soil remediation and clearing work in place, will likely begin to apply for building permits en masse. This could create a situation where homeowners begin building and planning their new homes, only to later learn that there are new rules surrounding landscaping. That could have grave consequences, says Jennifer Grey Thompson, the founder and CEO of the advocacy group After the Fire USA. Lawns that aren’t Zone Zero compliant could set homeowners up for higher insurance premiums, or difficulty in obtaining insurance at all. But removing existing landscaping could cost tens of thousands of dollars (she recalls residents of Paradise, the site of the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, spending up to $100,000 on landscaping that eventually got torn out). “I get the reluctance to rethink landscaping, that’s what we did,” Thompson says. “We also used to go out to an outhouse and use it and not have a bathroom in the house, and it was completely abhorrent to people that you might go have your toilet in the home. So, because of typhoid and cholera, we had to make a cultural and generational shift. Wildfire is a public health crisis like anything else, and it needs the same kind of shift.” (Photo: David Card/Palisades Forestry Commission)
There are varying views about how growth styles will be remade when they plan to return to the Palisades, including presenting plans that include a specific vision of the landscape. With more and more homeowners expected to start applying in the coming months, the uncertainty surrounding the final Zone Zero rules may compel some to move forward with their own ideas, or ignore the regulations altogether. Some designers are taking it into account. Organizers behind Case Study Adapt, a design competition for creating new, more resilient homes for the neighborhood, intentionally called for homes and lots to provide buffers between vegetation and buildings, to include more water features, and to take advantage of more native landscaping. Organizations like Fire Safe Marin, a Bay Area organization that promotes fire-safe landscaping, recommend reworking yards to be more fire safe. Thompson believes it’s a matter of when, not if, Zone Zero and other resilience regulations become more widely adopted in the new era of wildfires. But what happens at the checkpoint could be a major inflection point; the combination of wealth, fame, and influence in the area gives the community a lot of power to push back against these rules. Embracing them instead—and creating eye-catching landscapes with these rules in mind—could accelerate what Thompson sees as a crucial shift. The final iteration of these rules will be watched closely by both sides (draft language is already available). Opponents hope that any new rules will allow more flexibility in preserving specific trees and will include more municipal oversight. Much of Los Angeles’s urban tree canopy is in the Palisades and hilly areas on the east side of the city, both areas at high risk for fires, and arborists hope they’ll preserve any and all urban trees. There are live questions around implementation, too. Will CalFire and local fire inspectors really regularly check that trees are trimmed and watered? Perhaps most importantly for insurance and survival, going to zero requires a whole-community effort. If a group of residents in a residential area do not create these defensible spaces, Barrett says, they’re not just putting their homes at risk, they’re doing the same to other homes, raising the insurance risk for others. Not only design changes, but more community collaboration is needed to become more resilient in this era of wildfires. As neighborhoods come back and respond to what has become a more dangerous and fire-prone era, solidarity, not just combustibility, will become a watchword. “This is not the moment for the individualistic American way,” Thompson says. “This is a group project.”
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প্রকাশিত: 2025-10-19 15:00:00
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