Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Feb 24, 2021 22:39:57 GMT
laist.com/2021/02/24/banana_trees_southern_california_wildfires_climate_change_solution.php
Blackened hills behind developments are a surprisingly familiar scene to anyone who watches coverage of fires here in California.
As populations have grown we've gobbled up more and more undeveloped space for hillside homes, pushing the boundary of the wildland urban interface deeper into wildland, into habitats that burned even before we put homes there. It's no surprise that they regularly catch on fire.
The state now sees annual losses in the billions due to wildfires, and an estimated two million homes across the state are at risk. That risk is expected to triple in some areas in the coming decades as our climate becomes even more conducive to burning.
"The lines have already been drawn in terms of where the sort of wildland urban boundary is. So now our question is, how do we defend that boundary?" asked Raghavan.
That's where his bananas come in.
A MOAT OF BANANAS
"What I would envision doing, all the way from literally the boundary of this house up to the ridge that's above us ... I would've envisioned a banana orchard with a ground cover underneath it that was non flammable," he said.
In the Silverado fire, he says, hundreds of yards of banana plants could have provided valuable protection.
"We would've seen the fire come over the ridge ... It would've come up to the edge of our banana planting. And probably the first row of bananas would've been singed, but they wouldn't have caught fire, because they don't catch fire easily."