Australian town destroyed by fire offers lessons for Los Angeles: LAT

As the Los Angeles area works to clean up the devastation left by the Palisades, Eaton and other fires of last month, focus has turned to rebuilding.

As one Australian town that went through a similar situation 15 years ago indicates, however, there’s only so much that can be done to prevent wildfires, making rebuilding an inherently risky proposition.

As the Los Angeles Times details, Marysville, Australia, burned down in 2009 as a result of a fast-moving brush fire fed by hurricane-force winds.

A total of 173 people were killed by the blaze, including 39 in small Marysville, where only 14 of its 550 structures survived what became known as Black Saturday.

As the town’s residents began the rebuilding process, a panel of experts assembled by the government found hurdles like the dense forest nearby and few escape routes from the town meant it could never be safe.

“Some towns you can never protect from another Black Saturday-style fire,” said Roz Hansen, a planning expert on the panel, as reported by the Times. “Marysville is one such town.”

The city was ultimately rebuilt with updated fire codes and many protective measures in place, such as the use of fire-resistant cladding on many buildings.

Those measures, many of which are likely to be put in place in California as the rebuilding effort continues, can only do so much.

Southern California residents should be cognizant that no matter how many changes are made, humanity is limited in our ability to control fires such as these.

As Greg Mullins, a former fire commissioner in Australia, told the Times, there’s no stopping the brutal winds and dry conditions that allowed Black Saturday to happen — and likely will again in the future, especially as climate change accelerates.

“They shouldn’t have built [Marysville] back. No question,” he told the Times.