Sprawling Into Nature's Fires

Washington Post ^ | Blaine Harden

[Lorianne]

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. -- This past week's cataclysm of fire will go down as one of the worst disasters in the history of Southern California, killing at least 20 people, destroying more than 3,300 homes and laying waste to more than three-quarters of a million acres. It is likely to happen again.

According to scientists who study the urban ecology of the Los Angeles basin, more catastrophic wildfires are a near certainty, fed by sprawl, poor fire-prevention strategies, arsonists and local vegetation that, by its very nature, needs to burn.

[Carry_Okie]

I would read this moronic article, but for the facts that it is the Washington Post and I understand what it is about: shilling for infill, Sustainable Development, pushing up real estate prices inside of confined urban zones by squeezing from the outside.

The severity of the fires was caused by people who did little to control the fuel, in large part because Federal environmental regulations forbade them from doing so but also because environmental activism got the better of both good judgment and property rights. Grazing, forestry, and controlled burning that would have controlled the fuel were all curtailed.

[_Jim]

A friend of mine, hearing that vandals like to set buildings on fire out in the sticks where he bought land built his 'pole barn' exterior walls of stucco and also equiped it with a tin roof; some assurance that a grass fire or the simpler acts of vandalism won't result in the loss of his barn and contents ...

[John H K]

I really haven't seen anything suggesting property owners were prevented from clearing the brush from their own land anywhere in this area. An LA Times article yesterday attributed the limited destruction in Ventura county to that county requiring homeowners to clear all brush and weeds in a 100 foot radius from their houses, as opposed to a 30 foot radius in other counties...and actually enforcing the rules.

A persistent problem is people are using articles and information about forests in other part of the country and applying it to Southern California.

[Carry_Okie]

I really haven't seen anything suggesting property owners were prevented from clearing the brush from their own land anywhere in this area.

You might want to consider this take of a lawyer involved in property rights cases

The core problem is that species protection prohibits many ordinary fire precautions. You cannot clear coastal sage scrub, no matter how dense, if a gnatcatcher nests within it--unless the federal government provides a written permission slip which is extraordinarily difficult to obtain. The same prohibition lurks behind every species designation, and can even apply to land on which no endangered species has ever been seen but about which allegations of "potential occupation" have been made. I would add, that restrictions are placed, not just if a gnatcatcher nests in it, but if a gnatcatcher MIGHT nest in it.

Then there's this opinion by a forest archaeologist and historian before the fire hit

My understanding is that people in Lake Arrowhead were prevented from cutting even dead trees without a rather sticky permit process.

An LA Times article yesterday attributed the limited destruction in Ventura county to that county requiring homeowners to clear all brush and weeds in a 100 foot radius from their houses, as opposed to a 30 foot radius in other counties...and actually enforcing the rules.

Leave it to the LAT to go looking for the exception. Just because Ventura County managed to start enforcing realistic perimeters in some locations doesn't mean that such superceded Federal authority where there were critical habitat designations, or elsewhere for that matter.

[_Jim]

Speaking of 'proper home construction' again - even down here in Tejas wood shake shingles presents a problem down here when one home in an area catches fire; the 'wood shake shingled' roofs up wind are at MUCH greater risk of catching an ember and buring than any other type! (This comment comes after hearing one California fire expert explain that wood 'shakes' are used on both roofs and exterior walls for their pleassant appearance.)

This is common knowledge here!

[_Jim]

up wind => down wind