The flaming palm tree in Los Angeles: a sad July 4th ritual

Every July 4th, for most of the past decade, I log on to Twitter and start retweeting every photo and video I can find of palm trees accidentally set on fire by illegal fireworks. GOD BLESS AMERICA” July 2017: “the palm trees died so we could live” July 2018: “as a young child, I always dreamed of closely associating my personal identity/professional brand with palm tree fires. in Los Angeles, anything is possible” July 2019: “Flaming palm tree: the official symbol of the city of Los Angeles.” July 2020: “not ashamed to admit that the only reason I’ve downloaded the Citizen app is to detect L.A. palm tree fires” Like anything done as a gag for too long, the schtick becomes associated with you, which I have mixed feelings about. “Palm trees are a big threat, because many times they have big fronds, and tons of times they drop embers onto roofs in adjacent areas,” says Nicholas Prange, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In Southern California Edison’s wildfire mitigation plan from February, the utility identified 80,000 palm trees in the region that posed a problem to its operations: “ the palm is a major driver of emergent work and outages ; the palm represents a wildfire threat, as dead palm fronds are highly flammable and are easily blown long distances by winds; and the palm is fast-growing and may require multiple trims per year to maintain compliance.” In other words, palm trees knock out your power, start fires that threaten your home, and they’re a huge pain to take care of even when they’re not doing any of those things.