Bougainvillea blossom loves summer heat. Picture / Getty Images
The bougainvillea’s signature magenta and pink flowers have beautified Los Angeles neighbourhoods for more than a century, adorning fences and walls with lush carpets of blooms.
Outside the Getty Centre art museum, wire forms shape the flowering vine into towering, abstract trees. And suburban Glendora is home to the largest bougainvillea in the United States, a 120-year-old plant listed as a state historical landmark.
“They are a great, colourful plant,” said Steve Kawaratani, a land use consultant and horticulturist in Laguna Beach who as a child raked bougainvillea leaves in his grandmother’s yard. “They kind of symbolise Southern California.”
Californians may soon have to rethink their relationship with bougainvillea and other ornamental plants as officials grapple with the state’s increasing vulnerability to wildfires like those that tore through Los Angeles in January.
Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) is fast-tracking regulation, called “Zone 0”, that would limit what plants can grow within 1.5m of buildings in areas judged to be at highest risk for wildfires.
The goal is to create buffer zones around homes and other structures free of easily flammable plant material to reduce the risk of fire from flying embers.
Several LA community groups and elected officials oppose the change, arguing that the draft proposal would reduce biodiversity and pose a financial burden.
The state’s fire officials see a future in which the bougainvillea and similar plants can still thrive - planted differently, farther from buildings, but still brightening Southern California.
In many ways, this small change echoes the larger conversations in California about how to cope with changing weather and fire patterns as the planet warms.
“Even tough plants like bougainvillea, when pressed against walls, can ignite during ember attacks,” said David Barrett, executive director of MySafe:LA, a non-profit fire prevention organisation.
Barrett said the safest plants to have near homes are succulents, which are fire-resistant because they store so much moisture in their leaves and stems. Even so, he added, “it’s best if the first five feet [1.5m] are non-combustible to ensure safety”.
The draft regulation, which is set to be finalised by December 31, has been a topic of tense debate in the LA area. Hundreds of residents, including fire victims, attended a public feedback session on Friday. Many opposed it.
Some even argued that well-maintained foliage saved homes during the January fires by catching embers before firefighters arrived.
And in a report submitted to the Los Angeles City Council, the city’s Community Forestry Advisory Committee said Zone 0 is “well-meaning” but could spur unintended consequences, such as threatening biodiversity, loss of tree canopy, increased mudslide risks and increased conflicts with insurance companies.
At the same time, concerns about wildfires are intensifying.
The January blazes destroyed thousands of homes in LA County and killed at least 30 people. Vegetation close to homes is one of the factors that helped the blazes spread, the Washington Post has reported.
Lush vegetation close to structures has become a greater risk as warmer winds and drier summers have combined to dramatically increase Southern California’s fire risk.
Alex Hall, a climate scientist and director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, said lack of precipitation has dried up more vegetation, setting the stage for big fire seasons.
Vegetation was 25% drier at the start of the LA fires in January because of “extreme fuel moisture deficit”, according to a January analysis by Hall and other climate scientists with UCLA’s Climate and Wildfire Research Initiative. The fires also marked a new, unsettling reality of more flames winding their way towards urban areas, Hall said.
“We don’t really know what the riskiest zone is. … We don’t know how much further a fire like this might be expected to spread into urban areas in 2050 or 2080,” Hall said. “These are live questions.”
But enacting Zone 0 could make a significant difference, according to a study published last month in the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.
The authors fed data on five major California wildfires between 2017 and 2022 into fire simulations to estimate the effects of different methods of reducing fire risk.
Clearing a 1.5m buffer around a house alone reduced structure loss by 17%, the simulations show. The effect was greater when other steps, such as using fire-resistant siding and roofing materials, were factored in.
The Los Angeles Fire Department has recommended the removal of bougainvillea, Italian cypress, wisteria, and other vines since 2021. LAFD has conducted annual inspections for compliance, said LAFD public information officer David Dantic.
The implementation of Zone 0, however, would harden enforcement in high-fire areas statewide. Officials estimate that 17% of buildings would be affected.
The proposed regulations would require Californians in affected areas to remove grass, shrubs, fallen leaves, tree needles, weeds, bark, wood chips, and certain non-native plants, such as bougainvillea, within 1.5m of their homes.
That buffer zone would also need to be free of tree branches and other “combustible items,” such as firewood and petroleum-based products. Some potted plants would still be allowed.
The rules would apply immediately to new construction, while owners of existing buildings would be given three years to meet requirements. The draft does not state consequences for noncompliance.
Many critics of the plan are unhappy that it does not take into account differences in lot size and landscape.
Barrett, the director of MySafe:LA, wrote in a May letter to the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection that Southern California’s dense housing, compared with bigger lots in Northern California, makes for impractical enforcement.
He recommended different approaches based on when a building was constructed. That would, Barrett wrote, ensure fair compliance and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage “regardless of contextual factors such as construction type, slope, adjacent structures, or material upgrades”.
And Kawaratani said that well-maintained, healthy bougainvillea that are watered and pruned are not likely to burn.
J. Lopez, who is part of the eight-person board tasked with finalising regulations, said the objective is not to burden homeowners but to ensure that their property has the best chance of surviving a wildfire.
“The hard part of this is that as climate changes and as we have these fires that are more aggressive, business as usual hasn’t taken us anywhere,” Lopez said. “It doesn’t come without sacrifices, and I completely understand that.”
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