Last week, we asked our readers what they wanted to know about the wildfires still causing devastation across Los Angeles County. One that came up again and again: What’s the risk of catastrophic fires here in Long Beach? And what can be done to mitigate it?

We put those questions to Steve Jensen, a professor of emergency management services at Cal State Long Beach with over 30 years of expertise in emergency services leadership, fire prevention and the interface between urban and wildland areas. He spent 16 years as a fire responder in Long Beach, including 10 years as a firefighter. Jensen has also spent time in advisory roles with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, FEMA and the American Red Cross.

Here’s our interview with him. It’s been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: What topics do you teach in the Emergency Services Administration Master’s Program at Cal State Long Beach?

I look mostly at leadership, policy and organizational theory. So the idea is: organizations are the big tool that we’ve got to bring about change. Whether it’s a fire department or a city or the American Red Cross, those organizations are the big tool, but we need to know how to use those correctly particularly as things are changing fairly rapidly as our societies become more complex, but also more integrated.

Q: What is your expertise related to wildfires?

Well, I fought wildland fire for quite a few years, but mostly I’ve been involved in reducing risk where I can, so either through building codes or land use, or the way we manage vegetation, or the way we work with our communities. We try to reduce risk so that when a fire does occur, it’s more limited in its scope.

Q: Why were the Eaton and Palisades fires so devastating?

It was a combination of factors that came together, the perfect storm.

To begin with: the wildland areas of vegetation — the fuels have not been managed well over the years. They’ve been allowed to get overgrown without the kind of proper maintenance and thinning that’s required when you’re living close to these wildlands. 

And then we’ve had a period of abnormally dry time. We haven’t had any rain for eight months, any rain to speak of. And before that, we had two extraordinarily wet years. So we had a lot of growth, and then very dry, and the lighter fuels and the grasses dried out. So it just created this bomb out there. 

And then the third thing happens, we get Santa Anas. It wasn’t just an ordinary Santa Ana. We had a couple of weather systems set up to the south and north of us that compressed the flow of the Santa Anas, causing these extraordinarily strong Santa Anas. Normally, they’d come down through the canyons and you’d see the fire follow these particular corridors. In this case, the Santa Anas were so strong they came up over the top of the mountains and then just blasted down with sustained 60 mph winds and gusts up to 100 mph and the direction changing quite a lot.

All those things together were diabolical. But then it gets worse, because we’ve built our cities right in the mix of all this stuff. And I don’t think it’s a problem that we’re building there. It’s just we need to do it intelligently in the way we use the land, the way we manage vegetation and the way we build our houses. Then, most importantly, the way we regard our role there, where we’re living.

Q: Could Long Beach or nearby cities like Seal Beach and its wilderness preserves be prone to similar fires? 

I’m not so worried about that. What we need to understand is that Palisades, the Eaton fire … these are fires that started in the wildland but they really quickly moved into the urban areas, and they became urban conflagration. So the wildland fire was almost like a fuse that lit this urban conflagration, and that’s what we need to focus on, and that’s where we’re vulnerable, in Long Beach as well — is urban conflagration.

Q: Are there any particular areas in Long Beach that are more at risk for that urban conflagration? 

Well, you could look at it in three ways. You could look at how close the houses are together, so it’s easy for a fire to spread from one house to another. You can look at the way the houses are constructed [and whether] there is wood siding or wood shingles. And then you can look at the vegetation. You know the beautiful ways in which we landscape our homes, but it also leaves them vulnerable, if not done correctly, to fire spreading from house to house. So when you put those three combinations together, you could look at places like Marina Pacifica or perhaps the Peninsula that are particularly vulnerable to seeing widespread fire.

Q: In mid-December, a 1-acre brush fire scorched 20 palm trees near the Los Cerritos Wetlands, just a few hundred yards from shopping centers and other populated areas. Under extreme wind conditions could a fire like this spread to the nearby neighborhood?

Yeah, absolutely. You could see that in Seal Beach, in the area known as Gum Grove. Beautiful eucalyptus groves all through there and light grasses and everything, but vulnerable to fire starts, and it could get going and find its way into the neighborhood. It doesn’t have the momentum like it would in some of the canyons in the periphery of the city, but it still leaves us vulnerable. I think the main thing is to understand the conditions for urban conflagration. And it’s not like the whole city is vulnerable to it, but specific areas are, and again, in the right kind of wind conditions, we have to be extraordinarily careful and have the right pre-planning in place in case it does start.

Q: Is there anything inherent in Long Beach’s geography that protects it from extreme wind events or other conditions that drive massive wildfires?

The Santa Anas are very unique in that they tend to wrap around the periphery of the city. So the Los Angeles metropolitan area is surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges and the Santa Anas tend to funnel through those ranges and follow around the perimeter of the city. 

You see Santa Anas affecting the core of the city, in the Palos Verdes Peninsula area, Long Beach, Seal Beach and all that. But we’re really the last to get affected by it since we are really in the core of the metropolitan area, or the LA basin. That’s a big factor. We don’t get the sustained, super strong, gusty Santa Anas like they do up in the mountains, in the canyons [and] around the edge of the city.

Q: How do drought conditions impact Long Beach and its wildfire preparedness?

Nothing like the wildland areas around the periphery of the city. We irrigate things even in the [El Dorado] Nature Center or other places where there’s wildland stuff. We’re able to keep the grasses under control. We have very few problems. But again, I would emphasize it doesn’t mean that [Long Beach is] out of the problem of widespread fire, it’s just less likely in conditions of extreme drought, as compared to other parts of the metropolitan area. 

I would say that there are other conditions that could lead to urban conflagration. For example, if there’s an earthquake, it affects some buildings, homes, electrical services are compromised, or maybe we get a natural gas break, and that leads to fire. The buildings, perhaps are damaged and opened up a bit, so it’s easier for flames to take hold in that building, spread to neighboring buildings, and then we’re vulnerable because it’s harder for us to get access to them and perhaps even water supplies are compromised after an earthquake. So the problem of fire following an earthquake is one that we have to pay very careful attention to in a place like Long Beach and our fire department is very aware of that and works diligently to make sure they have plans in place to be able to work in a situation where there may be fire following an earthquake.

Q: Do you see the wildfire risk changing in Long Beach over the next 5-10 years?

It’s not a problem here. It’s not a major problem at all. It’s something that’s relatively easily managed. There’s places where we’ve let some very limited grassland and wildland areas get out of control, but it’s quite easy to get those managed better. We don’t need to let them get so junky looking and overgrown. It’s not like going and trying to trim up the Santa Monica Mountains or the San Gabriel Mountains. This is something we could handle in a few days with a couple of weed whackers.

Q: How can Long Beach residents be prepared?

I think it’s just important to have very basic preparedness measures in place. Again, where I am most concerned is the problem of fire following an earthquake and it would follow basic earthquake preparedness. You would understand how to shut off the gas service, if necessary, shut off your electric service if necessary. How you could help your neighbors do such things after an earthquake, understanding what you could do with a small fire extinguisher if a small fire does occur. Understanding when it’s going to be too big and you have to get out of the way and let others help you with it. 

The main thing is, in the scenario of an earthquake with multiple ignitions around the city, the fire department is very quickly going to be overtaxed and it’s going to be hard to get help from other parts of the metropolitan area. So it’s incumbent upon homeowners, for people, neighbors, to be able to help each other and as quickly as they can put out small fires where there’s still small fires. That’s understanding how to use an extinguisher, how to get those things out, how to do this quite quickly and keep these small fires from becoming large fires.

Q: What about the local government? What steps should they be taking before disaster hits?

Yeah, the Long Beach Fire Department does an excellent job. They’ve got the CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) training in place. That’s a great mechanism for being able to leverage the work of the fire department and get communities engaged in fire prevention and building safer neighborhoods. And, should an earthquake occur, being able to respond as a community, as a neighborhood, helping each other get through these things. So by all means, working closely with the fire department and becoming part of those networks is the best thing we could be doing.