When nature is on a rampage

The second most populated city and an important cultural and commercial hub of the United States, Los Angeles, has been burning since January 7. The catastrophic wildfire that so far reportedly claimed at least 16 lives had been raging for the seventh day on Monday (January 13) and roughly spread across over 38,000 acres of land. Fire fighters at the moment are reportedly responding to not one forest fire, but two major blazes, namely, the Palisades and the Eaton, raging around the Los Angeles county of Sothern California. The mainstream US media, though covering the devastating firestorm with due seriousness and regularity, do not seem to have gone overboard with the reporting. Also, life appears to be normal elsewhere in America despite the calamity that has struck that country. Consider such a devastating incident taking place in any South Asian country. In such eventuality, reports of the fire and its progress would occupy most of the news space. And, of course, exaggeration and scaremongering would go with it as it is par for the course with the style of reporting in this part of the world. The way victims of such fires or other kinds of calamities, whether natural or manmade, might express their feelings about the tragedy that befell them before the media would also be rather dramatic. Western media's reporting, on the other hand, unlike what usually happens in our case, is more factual, analytic and clinical. The affected people, too, are rather reserved and won't readily give themselves away before the camera. However, there is yet another reason why the Americans looked somewhat blasé about such a devastating fire in Los Angeles county of California. Notably, this state of America has experienced, on average, 8243 wildfires annually between 2000 and 2024 that burnt 394,526 hectares of land (annually). Of those, 20 were most destructive, the last one of which having happened in August 2020 destroying some 417,898 hectares of forestland.
The statistics point to how frequent the wildfires in that part of the USA are. That apart, what surprised experts regarding the ongoing Los Angeles conflagration is that the fire department found itself inadequate, even to some extent unprepared, to respond to the fires effectively. For the ferocity with which the wind was blowing made it impossible for the existing firefighting technology and expertise to handle it. In fact, when the wind blows at 10 miles per hour, fire fighters can respond to the fire effectively. But they are totally helpless when the wind speed is 30 miles per hour or more. Hence the helplessness of the Los Angeles fire fighters, as the wind accompanying the conflagration was reportedly blowing at a speed of 100 miles per hour.
Even though Californians are familiar with wildfires, the latest one they are experiencing at the moment in Los Angeles is unprecedented. The blaze reportedly broke out on Tuesday (January 7) morning from a brush-covered hilltop in Pacific Palisade, a neighbourhood of Los Angeles. But the question of how or who started the fire has still remained unanswered. Clearly, it is climate change, again, at play here. Considering that the most technologically advanced country in the world is quite helpless before the wrath of nature that visited upon Loss Angeles is a lesson for less developed countries like Bangladesh. True, Bangladesh is no stranger to natural calamities like floods, cyclones, storm surges and so on from the sea. But climate change is making those more powerful and destructive. Is Bangladesh ready to face natural calamities of such apocalyptic proportions that might strike the country in the future?

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