Natural element of ecosystem: L.A. fires 'so intense, violent, brutal that recovering's problematic'

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00:00Well, as we've been hearing, the French Premier has agreed to renegotiate President Emmanuel

00:05Macron's highly unpopular pension reform, but who is now set to meet with social partners

00:11that's trade unions and employment federations, which includes France's largest MEDEF to do

00:17just that.

00:18Macron's plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 unleashed months of mass protests

00:24from January to June of 2023 that damaged his leadership.

00:30Well, let's get you the latest on the fires in Los Angeles now.

00:36Tens of thousands of people ordered to flee their homes as wildfires tore through the

00:41city have been told that they are not allowed to come back for at least a week.

00:46That's due to fears over electrocution, excuse me, landslides and exposure to toxic materials.

00:53Firefighters have burned for a 10th day.

00:56They're now going into the 11th day.

00:58Firefighters expressed some relief as they break in extreme winds that have been fanning

01:02the flames is now forecast as of Thursday.

01:06The two largest fires have killed at least 25 people and burned over 40,000 acres of

01:12land and destroyed thousands of homes.

01:15Well, let's get more on this and speak to Yves Figueroa, who joins me in the studio.

01:21Good to have you.

01:22Thank you for joining us.

01:23You're a specialist from CNRS.

01:26Now of course, this has been going on for over a week now and it's left people displaced.

01:32It's left homes damaged.

01:34Talk to us about how difficult the recovery will be after this.

01:38Right.

01:40Well, we have two different areas that are affected, natural areas, obviously, and then

01:45urban areas.

01:46And the scenarios are completely different, whether you talk about the natural areas or

01:49the urban areas.

01:51Fire is a completely natural element of the ecosystem in those regions, so normally having

01:55a fire is not necessarily something which is damaging.

01:59It's actually useful to the environment.

02:01But those fires are so intense, so violent, so brutal, that for the environment, recovering

02:07is actually going to be quite problematic.

02:10They will need to plant new trees.

02:12They will need to eradicate invasive species, for example.

02:16Mudslides in the coming days are going to be an issue, probably.

02:19The next rains will be extremely, potentially dangerous.

02:22So that's everything dealing with the environment.

02:26As far as the urban part of the fires is concerned, rebuilding is going to be a major issue on

02:32– you know, for several reasons.

02:34The first one is obviously how are they going to rebuild.

02:37If they build the same way in the same places, the same consequences will happen again.

02:43That's – there's no discussion.

02:44It's a matter of when, not a matter of if.

02:47If you build houses in timber, in wood, in forested areas, they will burn.

02:55That's one thing.

02:56The other thing is the insurance question.

02:57Are those places insurable?

03:00Will the insurance companies – State Farm has already left California.

03:04How are people going to get insurance, and if they're not insured, how are they going

03:08to get mortgages from the banks?

03:10Those are all the issues that are going to be discussed.

03:12They're probably – those are early days, but we're moving towards a potential insurance

03:17crisis that may actually reach outside of California, outside of the United States,

03:24in Europe.

03:25The reassurance market is a global market.

03:28Yeah, there's going to be a tonne of bureaucracy now after these fires, once they stop burning.

03:34Right.

03:35Let's talk about the rebuilding that's going to happen.

03:40Governor Gavin Newsom has already spoke about building an LA 2.0.

03:44He's talked about this Marshall Plan that they're going to start to organise.

03:49What do you imagine are going to be the key points in this new plan?

03:53I'm not sure what the key points are going to be.

03:55What they perhaps should be would be to rethink the connection with the wildland areas outside

04:02of Los Angeles.

04:03The fires happened in an area which is known as the wildland-urban interface, meaning essentially

04:10where the city meets the forest.

04:12This is a really tricky area.

04:14This is a really pleasant area.

04:15That's why a lot of people want to live there, and that's understandable.

04:19But in terms of risk, in terms of fire management, it raises a lot of challenges that have always

04:23existed but they've become worse and a lot worse.

04:26The question is whether it's actually sustainable.

04:30Before rebuilding, and the governor has already taken measures to waive environmental regulations

04:36to speed up the process, but before they rebuild, there should be a point where you stop a little

04:44bit and think about whether it's advisable to build in those places.

04:48I'm not sure it's going to happen, obviously.

04:51But the whole question is to evaluate the fire risk in that interface.

04:58It was high.

05:00The question is whether it is now just sustainable.

05:05That's going to be the key question going into this.

05:07Let's talk about those that are going to be allowed to return to their homes.

05:11Obviously we've heard that some residents won't be allowed to return for at least a

05:15week now.

05:16But even if they do return to their homes, to these places that have been badly affected,

05:21they are still going to have challenges.

05:23The water lines, gas lines are going to probably stay off for a couple of months now.

05:28Can you lay out for us some of the challenges that are facing the displaced?

05:32Some of the challenges will be to access their homes.

05:36You might have seen on some of the pictures coming from Los Angeles, sometimes in some

05:40neighbourhoods, and particularly in Altadena, you have houses that are still standing in

05:44a sea of destroyed houses.

05:47Living in such an environment is not even safe in terms of the materials that burn.

05:52You have plastics, you have all kinds of things that are not particularly healthy to breathe.

05:58That's one of the challenges.

06:01Another, and particularly for Pacific Palisades, another of the challenges, as I said earlier,

06:05is the mudslides.

06:08The first rains that are going to come and drench those soils that have been severely

06:12damaged by the fires, those rains are going to be extremely, I was going to say catastrophic,

06:21hopefully not, but there's a risk.

06:24One of the challenges will be to build some kind of safety perimeter protecting the houses

06:31that are still standing and whether people are going to go back.

06:34Lastly, obviously, the fire danger is still there.

06:39Fires happened in those places for a reason.

06:42Those reasons haven't changed.

06:45It's great to have you on the programme.

06:46Thank you so much, Yves, for giving us your insight.

06:48Really appreciate you joining us.

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