WILL POWER REPORT: ANOTHER EXPENSIVE FIRE?

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Nothing but the Truth!

 

September 4, 2009-- Big surprise! Another fire in LA County will cost millions to extinguish. Firefighters come from Shasta County to get in on the juicy overtime. Private contractors lease out bulldozers and aircraft at ridiculous rates to save the homes of the foolish rich who build in canyons and on ridge-tops.

The nature of chaparral is that it periodically burns. Without man’s interference, it burns every five to ten years at low intensity, which allows roots to re-grow and many seeds to germinate. Most fires are started by lightning, burn a few days or weeks, and go out naturally.

Then developers start putting homes on ridgetops, suppressing fires, and the fuel load starts to build up. When fire finally hits, the fire is so hot roots burn up completely, the ground is baked to clay, and nothing can grow in the area for years.

It would be cheaper to force people who build in fire areas to clear their own land of brush, allow fires to burn naturally, and stop the process of fighting fires with machines.

The conflagration which recently saw one-half of the Angeles Forest burn up is a testimony to the failed land-use and fire planning in our urban-rural interface. What’s worse, in five years, many of the same areas will be ready to burn again.

The definition of insanity is doing the same stupid things over and over, and if our fire policies are not insane, why do we see the same old, same old fires burning in the same old, same old neighborhoods. We need to revise fire codes, force homeowners to clear their own land, and change insurance laws so we don’t keep paying for the same fire every few years.

 


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