This fire season is going to be bad. The land is bone dry, and it has been hot. The Station Fire is huge, and already deadly. To the families of those who lost their lives fighting for the safety of others, we all wish you well. This is a terrible loss for the state, as losing any public safety always is.
The fire continues to threaten thousands of homes, plus billions of dollars of infrastructure. The Mt. Wilson Observatory is not only important from a scientific standpoint, it also has substantial historical value. This fire is far from controlled, and what it takes with it is anybody’s guess.
I hesitate to bring this up, but I have some quibble with the way this article was presented. Long story short, it points out that CalFire didn’t really get hit with cuts. And that’s true, but this fire season looks set to wipe out whatever budget reserve the July deal kept (or didn’t keep depending on your accounting).
Thing is, we don’t have much choice but to fight the fires where they endanger lives. It is a mandatory expense. But, when the legislature has to deal with the next budget crisis, these fires will end up hurting the state in more ways than just property damage. It’s going to take resources from other programs, other programs that are barely getting by as it is.
[UPDATE] by Julia By the way, the state already now burned through (pun intended) $106.5 million of its $182 million in allocated emergency firefighting money only two months into the fiscal year. And we are just at the beginning of the fire season. It is highlight likely that we will need to tap reserves.
I agree that it’s a mandatory expense, but more responsible development planning and more enlightened land management could have mitigated the crisis proportions of the current moment.
We should have some serious public debate about allowing developers to build right up to and beyond the margins of chaparral-covered wildfire country. The houses that are there need to be protected, but we needn’t build more in the future. This is predictable disaster. There’s no reason we can’t be proactive about it.
Also, when persons and property are not in danger, we should allow smaller brushfires and wildfires to burn. I’m not sure what the CDF’s current policy is on this, and I’d love to learn, but I know that for a period of time at least, total fire suppression was the principle for Los Angeles and much of the state. That policy just allows for further accumulation of fuel. It’s counterproductive and based on the mistaken notion that we can adapt natural processes to us, rather than adapt ourselves to those processes.