The Big Chaos Big Change Series: Part 1, Scene-Setting & Wildfire
Instability & Wildfires & An Election, Oh My
Welcome To The Big Chaos Big Change Series
Welcome to this new big picture post series. It’s kind of a crazy name except that it fits the moment.
Just because we’re all still going to the grocery store and to school and to work like everything is “normal” doesn’t mean it is.
We’re living in a time of huge change and we know it. We might do a better job handling all of this better if we face some of that change, instability, risk, and chaos head-on.
This writing series can help. Over the next week or so, this series will get into some of the big disruption pieces and parts; whether the pieces work; where there are missing pieces; and what could go wrong — but also what could go right.
Because in the midst of motion, instability, acceleration, disruption, and great transformation… huge change will happen.
We can drive at least some of that change. We’ll drive change better if we know what we want, if we’re working together, if we’re talking about real stuff, and if we hold some big vision. We can totally do all of that.
This series will be alarming and probably deeply unsettling, but it will also give very real options that can help us all navigate this time… and to come out way better on the other side, in the future.
Honestly it can also help us help each other as chaos, change, and instability unfold. We’re going to need to pull together more to get through all the things and to help more people survive, thrive, and flourish as we go.
Hard Realities
Many of us are on a natural high after the last few weeks of momentum, positive Democratic Party news coverage, and forward-thinking-agenda-setting since VP Harris and now Governor Walz have burst onto the national scene as the Democratic Party’s nominees for US President and Vice President. It is so damn cool.
It gives us a real chance at a different future than some of the hellscapes we’ve been headed toward.
But, even if (when) they get elected, we won’t suddenly find ourselves in a utopia of sunshine and flowers. We have huge challenges out there. Part of navigating those challenges successfully is taking them seriously, and coming out of denial.
The US is not ready for big disasters — and we’re also facing some other instability.
The thing is, humanity will survive whatever threats are coming at us. Assuming this fall’s election goes well and we can keep any coup attempts and other related political violence to a minimum — the US will have a much better chance at surviving as a country.
But overall humanity has some challenges and they are urgent urgent urgent urgent. One could argue that we might do a better job of it if the US is stable, and if we can get this country on a more sustainable, resilient path. That alone will take transformation, but the sparks are already lit for it. We may well be on our way.
So, welcome to this new big picture post series.
Track this series over the next week or two. Get a big picture sense for some of what’s out there.
Bring your friends. Share these posts around. Talk about the stuff that’s in them. Talk about what it means for you and yours right where you are — because you never know when the next bit of chaos hits your ‘hood.
Or just turn on the news and watch the current flooding/tornadoes on the east coast and hear people just hit by wind or floodwater say they never thought it could be them — but now they know it could be anyone.
Tragedy sucks. We’re going to have a lot of it with what’s coming.
But we can also have the brilliant and the shiny and the amazing. We’ll have more of that if we do a better job with the trauma and tragedy.
We’ll do a better job with the trauma and the tragedy if we’re willing to look hard reality in the eye and have some reckonings with it. And then if we get ready.
So let’s get to dreaming big and driving transformation. The pro-democracy alliance in the US now even more strongly led by the Democratic Party has already moved into a position of offense versus defense. We are soooooooo on the move.
Let’s go all the way and make this coming big set of changes in the US work the way humanity needs it to.
Millions of people are depending on us to do that.
Let’s do right by them — and by us.
Scene Setting: We Need Good Information So We Can Make Good Decisions As Instability Increases
This post series is about the overall big picture in the US — elections and authoritarianism and disasters included — with perspective from my unique experience in government and elsewhere.
We have governments at every level that aren’t serving us in the best ways that it could be; especially in this time of disruption.
We’re living in “interesting times.” Everything is unprecedented. Just about anything could happen.
We will do a better job navigating potential but likely chaos if we have some idea of the state of things before everything goes really funky.
One key to getting through all of this is that we’re going to need at least some people to keep their wits about them as we go through it. Is that you? Is it your family? Is it your community?
Knowing how rough this could be, what to look for, and how to dig into things at different levels can help. This post is a start.
We’re not as set up for multiple disasters and catastrophes as we should be… in a time when political violence and threats are on the rise; when there are automatic weapons and other guns available all over the place; when the Middle East is increasingly unstable; when climate change is leading to more frequent and more intense disasters; when climate change could lead to world changes such as the collapse of vital ocean current systems; and when the spectre of bird flu is becoming more real. And so on.
We need to do things differently because we weren’t ready for multiple disasters and big catastrophes even before Trump ran for president.
Now nine years later when there’s a whole MAGA movement threatening to destabilize government… the likelihood of more frequent and more severe disasters and catastrophes has increased due to climate change and to the growing world population living increasingly in high hazard zones. That risk has also increased due to improved cyber warfare capabilities; due to the widespread domestic proliferation of firearms; the ease with with people can conduct mass shootings; the rise in political violence and threats; the increase in political extremism; and the empowerment of white supremacists and accelerationists.
There’s a lot of potential for big, bad stuff… and for a lot of it to happen all at once.
The post series will look at disasters and catastrophes and how our big picture approach to handling multiple catastrophes is a bit of a mess. Of note, the term “catastrophe” is used loosely here to reference mega-disasters that tend to impact entire regions and/or to cause major impacts outside of the original impact region. Catastrophe examples include the Covid-19 pandemic, Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and 9/11.
I’ll start in on the details with the wildfire world.
So now get your brains ready because this wildfire summary is going to be some fast government information.
This Wildfire Season Is As Bad As It Looks
This story starts with wildfire because a big wildfire season impacts our country’s ability to handle other disasters and catastrophes — and we’re having a big wildfire season. Canada is too, just for context.
Here’s Canada’s big picture fire situation for today (August 9), pulled from this map, just to give a sense for how severe things are on the continent with intensifying disasters due in part to climate change:
Canada has a fire info page here, and a situation report summary here… although I don’t immediately see a scale of badness that we can use to get a sense for how mobilized that country is. When you look at their large fires (shown in various red circles sized by hectare range) overlaid with their fire danger map… it certainly doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon.
The US does have a clear sort of “badness” scale. Right now it’s definitely Bad, and our wildfire resources are heavily mobilized.
The US uses five national Preparedness Levels… from level 1 being “less bad” to level 5 being like “holy buckets we’re using nearly all the firefighting resources we have and also there’s lots of fire danger.”
The US has been in Preparedness Level 5 since July 18. Details for what these Preparedness Levels mean are in the national mobilization guide here on pages 13-16 (the full mobilization guide is here).
Here’s the US’ national wildfire incident information page. It’s located at the NICC at NIFC administered by NWCG.
We’ll pretend I didn’t just use a bunch of acronyms and skip to the incident info. The national Incident Management Situation Report (IMSR) for US wildfires can be found here daily. That same page also has an archive and a how-to-read-the-IMSR guide.
The IMSR says a lot but in wildfire-speak and acronyms so I’ll do a quick take summary below. Here’s a screenshot of the first page only of the August 9 IMSR:
This tells me that we’re in Preparedness Level 5 (the highest level); there are a heck of a lot of incident management teams assigned (CIMTs, Type 1 IMTs, and NIMOs) which means the existing incidents are complicated; there are military assets activated nationally; there is not yet significant international assistance although that’s possible at any point now; there are a lot of “large” uncontained fires; there are a high number of new large fires; and finally it shows that all of those large fires are all over the west but concentrated especially in the Pacific Northwest (designated by NWCC in the IMSR), Northern Rockies (NRCC), and Great Basin (GBCC).
From skimming the rest of the report (IMSR) and also from this handy NICC summary I can see that the Pacific Northwest is the highest priority region for critical response resources to be allocated to and that they’re essentially at max capacity there. Other areas are not maxed out but are very busy fighting lots of fire and/or sending lots of resources to fight fires elsewhere.
None of that is great because the August outlook from the US wildfire outlook page indicates significant wildfire potential across the west for the month — including in areas that usually have lower fire danger in August. Like there’s a lot of red. And nationally we’re already at Preparedness Level 5.
Big Picture Perspective
So yeah… the US is already in a sort of “hey we’re using an awfully lot of the resources we’ve got” position in wildfire. If the already-tough wildfire season continues or worsens, the wildfire disaster/catastrophe situation will of course continue to grow around the west.
This is notable because the wildfire community usually responds to other disasters, too, when needed — like for flooding across the southeast and up the east coast this week due to Tropical Storm Debby. When the wildfire folks are maxed out, there’s less capacity to help other disciplines and areas respond to crises.
It gets worse when there are lots of disasters, or several simultaneous catastrophes — because all of the different types of response system compete with each other for response resources, and there’s no good mechanism in place to prioritize who gets what. More on that in upcoming Big Picture series posts.
87 Days — A Lot Could Happen
It’s 87 days to the election.
A lot can happen in 87 days. We could have bomb threats, mass shootings, and more political violence. We could see escalation in the Middle East. The US Supreme Court could further destabilizes US institutions and the rule of law. Voting and the election could become more fraught with challenges and threats… like direct voter intimidation, or polling place violence. We could have a hurricane catastrophe or two while we’re having this very heavy wildfire season; the responses could (possibly) go badly based on the realities that this series will lay out. Elections have been lost due to poor disaster responses. Lots could happen.
I’m super fun at parties.
Still, we have options.
The series will talk more about how when crises happen, our communities may face very huge challenges in the immediate aftermath of the emergency because our response capacity is not as good as it could be or because it may not be well coordinated between large disaster or catastrophe areas. Support, resources, supplies, and infrastructure restoration may take longer than we think they should.
We could do things now together locally or regionally to help us deal with this challenging reality.
Ideas! Ways Forward!
For example, the “disaster stuff” or “resilience building” civic engagement activities in this idea list from the Make Shift Happen page can help communities build strength and grow resilience.
Other aspects of this nonprofit’s 5 Things approach can also help us collectively better navigate this tricky risk landscape. In fact this nonprofit’s approach was designed with this risk landscape in mind. I’m writing this series to explain why, in more detail.
There is not another organization like this — Shift the Country is uniquely structured for the huge challenges in this transformative time.
Shift the Country is set up to drive civic engagement, public pressure, and voter turnout to create a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable democracy.
Shift the Country promotes ideas for activities that people and groups can use to raise a ruckus, influence the narrative, and get voters fired up. Together we can do a million things in a million places to elect good people and to bring about transformative change.
That can mean making big shifts in politics with civic engagement activities, pressure, and coverage.
It can also mean making big shifts in communities helping our own communities navigate this unfolding time of disruption and transformation.
If you want to talk more about how, set up a time — or just invite us to your group to speak. Email team@shiftthecountry.com or call (515) 375-9027.
We can get started now.
Take care. Keep the faith — in us. We got this.
And keep your wits about you.
Onward.
Vanessa Burnett is the Executive Director of Shift the Country, a unique nonprofit set up to drive civic engagement, public pressure, and voter turnout to create a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable democracy. Vanessa is a former homeland security professional with 25+ years experience in resilience, big disasters, wildland fire, emergency management, land management, continuity of operations, and disaster information sharing.
Corin, thank you so much for sharing this. I appreciate it.