 and welcome back to Teens on Topic. I'm your host, Cedric Hughes, and today we'll be discussing the wildfires that are raging up and down the West Coast of America. I am joined today by five special guests. So I'd like to dive into today's discussion by talking about the impacts of these fires on our lives and how those impacts may have been different from past years. We've seen fires for the past three years becoming worse and worse. Last year, the campfire destroyed the entire town of Paradise, including 18,000 structures. This year, less structures have been destroyed and fewer lives have been taken at least so far, but it seems like the effects of these fires are more pronounced in other areas. Ben, do you want to start our conversation off by speaking to that? Sure, yeah. One interesting thing I was rooting recently was that usually when there's a West Coast fire that's really large, California, Oregon, and Washington kind of like share firefighters and collaborate to work on putting them out. But right now, because there are fires in all three of those states, no state has enough resources to be able to help out the other states. So for instance, Oregon had to evacuate, I believe it was 10% of its entire population, which is obviously really bad. So I think when it's that intense, it clearly is a sign that fires are getting worse over time. I'm currently not in California or on the West Coast, so I can't speak to it personally, but I definitely have noticed a trend of fires becoming noticeably worse in my lifetime. And I know just before I left for college, the last week or so, there was a lot of ash in the sky and it was really kind of had an apocalyptic feel almost, just having to wear a mask both because of the COVID epidemic and because of the smoke in the air. So I forgot what your original question was, but that's my thoughts on the fires. Right. Well, Ben, I had made the mistake and I had forgotten that you were off in Boston. I was really looking for someone to speak to how here in Davis, we really haven't been affected personally at least by those fires of the past. And you mentioned how much worse the smoke has been. So I'm looking for someone's input on how that has been affecting them. So we'll go now to Emma Artson, a girl who's joining us today who is in Davis. Emma, what's your take on these fires? It's certainly a very crazy time because of COVID and because of the fires. And it really feels like the world is ending almost. The sky is incredibly overcast. Well, not overcast. It's incredibly smoky to the point where it looks like it's overcast. Like sometimes I'll be out in the morning and think, oh, it's going to rain. And then I think, no, it's summer. And also it's the fires. So it's definitely been something that has been an ever present aspect of our lives for the past couple of weeks or the people in Davis' lives. And it's been difficult having to also try and figure out how I'm going to spend time outside as a lot of times I would go on walks. But now that the air quality is so awful and that there's literal smoke, ash particles raining down and getting in my eyes when I do try to walk, that it's sort of really forcing me to stay inside more when other times I would have been out walking and getting more exercise. Right. And staying inside has become really the new normal for everyone from coronavirus, but especially for those on the West Coast, with the air quality index in some places going above 230, some very unhealthy air in San Francisco the other day. So since 1975, these fires experts have looked and they've seen that they have been growing progressively worse. And we pointed to a number of factors that have been causing this, both positive and negative positive, such as forests coming back after massive deforestation that happened in the early 1900s. And now these forests have had the chance to recover and there's more fuel for the fires, but also negative with climate change making for hotter seasons and drier summers that really make areas of the West Coast just tinder boxes that are ready to go. So over to Zoe now who's right now in New York and luckily safe from these fires. But Zoe, what's your take on the possible causes of the fires? Well, I don't, let's see, I don't really know if I have much to say about the causes of them, the fact that other than the fact that as you mentioned, like California's climate is overall extremely sensitive to the fires. And then people, again, I'm really not that educated on the start of the fires. All I can really say is that I'm very, very scared. I got out before it really hit its peak, but it's just knowing my entire family is stationed in California. It's, yeah, unfortunately, I have nothing much to contribute other than the fact that I'm always really scared that something will happen to Davis and to the people that I really care about, especially since in San Francisco. What is it? The sky was orange, like this really rich, like pumpkin orange. That was horrifying. Like when I heard about it, I was really scared. So I'm really sorry, Cedric, I have nothing much to contribute to your original question. Oh, Zoe, absolutely nothing to apologize for. With teens on topic, none of us here are experts or anything. It's just our conjecture, really. But so back over to a point that Ben made about these fires and the resource sharing that California Oregon and Washington did in past years with firefighters and how that isn't so possible now. These fires have left many wondering why were we so ill prepared for this, especially after the fires of a couple years ago? Why were we not ready to handle something that we should have known was coming? So now over to Brandon and at both in Berkeley, California, what is your guys's take on California Oregon and Washington's response to the fire? What do you think we've done wrong? Things we could have been doing differently? Or if you think we've been handling it the best we can? One thing I heard that is pretty relevant. The crossing of COVID-19 with this set of fires this year has made it a lot worse because normally California uses a large percentage of the prison population to fight the fires, which is in itself kind of questionable. You know, going off of the 13th Amendment. But yeah, a large percentage of these workers or inmates who work to put out fires and are a part of Cal Fire weren't able to actually help this year because they are in like a state of lockdown because of COVID-19. The large outbreaks in the prison system have led to them, you know, not being used this year. So it's kind of, I think we need to look at like the prison system in general and just kind of like see why are we using these people as our firefighters but also how can we now fight fires effectively without them? That is a wonderful question, Adam, and one that I am sure the governors of these three western states are grappling with currently. Brandon, what's your take? That's kind of what I'd heard too about in regards to fighting the fire. I will say as for like evacuating, I think that that's actually being handled pretty well. We were actually given an evacuation notice that we might need to. We're on red alert and honestly like I was checking the fire maps. It wasn't too close to us but like it was close enough where I was glad they at least put it out there so that people were ready to go just in case. Definitely, definitely. Well, AQI here is 245. So we are definitely feeling the effects of the fire even despite not being directly threatened by fire coming and burning down where we live. But it's like still affecting us. There's times when we don't even want to go outside on walks or get air because the air is literally smoke. It's terrible. Right. It seems here in California that before we couldn't go out because of COVID and now we know just how lucky we really were now that we really can't go out. Well, thank you everyone for joining me. This has been a wonderful short of Teens on Topic. I've been your host, Cedric Hughes. Thank you for joining us and we hope to see you soon.