This fall saw a critical drought warning issued for most of Massachusetts, including the Medford and Somerville regions. As a result, the state saw red flag warnings coupled with several fast-moving brush fires which dampened air quality on several days in October. Since then, rain has alleviated immediate concerns.
Hessann Farooqi, executive director of Boston Climate Action Network, commented on what causes these drier periods.
“What we see in the Northeast, and in many other regions, is that the changing weather patterns often lead to drier weather, and so wildfires become more intense and more frequent,” Farooqi said.
Jonah Bloch-Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, explained this concept further.
“If everything’s just a little bit warmer, there’s some percentage of that drought that’s now stronger … you might start to have plants that die off that would otherwise help to retain moisture in the soil,” Bloch-Johnson said.
Bloch-Johnson said that this lack of precipitation depletes groundwater, which generates susceptibility to violent storms fueled by increased water vapor. He also explained how these factors work against water retention, often leading to drought.
Farooqi said he fears that, as climate change worsens, the health effects from increased droughts and fires may become more pronounced.
“Fire [causes] air pollution, and that means … more asthma attacks, it means more difficulty breathing and it means that folks are going to change the way that they are living their lives,” Farooqi said.
At Tufts, concerns that these extreme weather events, specifically the risk of fire, may worsen over the coming year have led to increased safety precautions and actions to mitigate the effects of drought.
“We have installed new irrigation control sensors that closely monitor the weather and help us to conserve water. We have seen a decrease in water usage because the sensors will turn irrigation off more frequently if we have had a recent rain event or the transpiration levels are low,” Tufts’ grounds manager, Henry Puza, wrote in an email to the Daily.
Puza also detailed some of Tufts’ fire prevention measures.
“We are actively removing leaves and fallen timber during our current regular maintenance schedule, so any flammable yard waste material is quickly being removed and hauled off-site,” he wrote.
The Tufts Office of Emergency Management recently oversaw a 2023 project aimed at additional hazard mitigation related to both natural and human-caused phenomena. The project hopes to detect these vulnerabilities and take actions that will increase resiliency within the community.
Rebecca Ping, Tufts’ director of emergency management, shared information about other fire prevention strategies.
“This semester, Sustainable Solutions Fellow Simran Patel, A25, has been exploring strategies used by other higher education institutions and local municipalities to address poor air quality caused by wildfire smoke. Her research will culminate in a series of recommendations on how Tufts can navigate these challenges across all our campuses,” Ping wrote in an email to the Daily.
At the same time, Tufts continues to follow fire support officer policies derived from the Massachusetts Fire Code and local ordinances. Warnings to students will also proceed at the directive of the Massachusetts State Fire Marshal or if specific Tufts conditions merit action.
Tufts also continues to follow its own “3 E’s” of risk reduction: education, engineering and enforcement, as outlined by Tufts Fire Marshal John Walsh. Tufts educates community members using both Tufts’ specific policies and publications such as the “Emergency Response Guidebook.” Infrastructural priorities include safety mechanisms such as fire alarms and fire sprinklers, while the Tufts University Department of Public Safety ensures such systems remain in good condition.
“Students living on or off campus should be mindful of the presence of combustible materials around the exterior of their housing, especially if the house has porches or decks,” Walsh wrote.
“We have to make sure, as we’re coming up with all of our disaster preparedness plans, that we’re thinking about how these affect people who don’t have resources as much as [how they affect] folks who do,” Farooqi said.
Farooqi emphasized the importance of working together to not just manage the effects of drought, but to tackle its root causes.
“We need to be working together and changing the way our institutions work, holding bad actors accountable so that we can meaningfully shift the way that we’re doing business,” he said.
