Looking to wildfire incidence elsewhere might help give a clearer picture. I suspect, say, that total suppression policies haven't been widespread in Siberia.
The Australian wildfire experience, and fatal blazes in recent years in Portugal and Greece also come to mind.
Seems to me suppression has been a partial, but not complete, contributing factor.
I've made numerous trips through the areas, frequently noting either the previous fire scars visible when doing so, or hearing reports of major wildfires and being able to identify specific areas I've been through or stayed.
California has more people and houses. By percentage of affected housing, it's dwarfed by Montana (29%) and Idaho (26%), as opposed to 15% for California.
See: https://www.iii.org/article/background-on-wildfires
(Submitted to HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21400931)
The above is historic, modern housing needs to work with it. I'm not sure how you can do that in California.
https://www.shraboise.com/2017/09/91317-10-m-policy-u-s-fore...
Other factors are compounding this:
- Diseased forests. Largely beatle infestations and factors such as oak blight. These and similar affect much of the West.
- Monsoon/drought cycles. These both lead to more fuel (monsoon) and drier fuel (drought).
- Weather is a factor. Low humidities (in the past week, down into the teens) and high winds. Disruption of the Jet Stream may be exacerbating this.
- Climate: Shorter wet seasons, longer dry seasons, and more variable weather cycles (heavier rains, stronger winds, lower humidities) don't help.
- Human factors: encroachment on the wilderness interface, ignition sources, building codes, transport routes, etc., effect both frequency and impacts. Many fires are of natural origin, thought that's only about 15%. How much that percentage has changed since 1930 I don't know.
NB: general information and perceptions, though they should stand up.
LA Times lists several of these factors: https://www.latimes.com/local/wildfires/la-me-g-california-f...
This wildfire fighter veteran gives fuel and weather principally: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5nde4/a-veteran-firefigh...
That's similar to a long conversation I'd had with a retired forestry worker in 2007. Chance encounter on a road trip, he talked about the idiocy of total suppression policy at the time. Unfortunately, not citable, though it was a very memorable discussion.
Ignition sources: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-w...
Fire records have been kept reliably since 1932. Of the 20 largest fires in state history, one dates to the 1930s. None have occurred in the 1940s, 50s, or 60s. Two occurred in the 1970s, 1 in the 1980s, and sixteen since 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires
This is independent of structures or urban-rural interface. The measurement here is area burnt. And despite advances in detection and firefighting methods, the situation has been deteriorating rapidly. All of this is independent of PG&E.
That the utility's equipment has been directly responsible for multiple blaze ignitions is absolutely true. But this doesn't seem to me to be the biggest factor, and a focus on ignition rather than increasing latent fire risk seems to me absurdly myopic.
(The power curtailments themselves seem fairly prudent. Though horribly disruptive.)