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From what I see in the photo someone posted, there's very little on her property that could burn. It's virtually barren of any kind of vegetation.
This kind of "hyper-regulation" is beginning to concern me.
I hear you. She said she loved the view of the mountains. Having absolutely no hills around here I thing of trees and stuff.
I don't know the provenance of the photo -- when it was taken, by whom, or whether the lawn was cut between the citation and the picture.
In the article that began this thread, the lawn was described as looking "like dried hay." I've never seen half-inch hay. So there's a discrepancy between what was reported and what the photo shows.
If the house looked like the photo when the complaint was made and when the citation was issued, then I agree that the citation was stupid. If it looked like that when the officer showed up to serve the citation, he should have -- or should have been granted the authority to -- confirm that the problem had been fixed.
That is based on the assumption that short dry grass doesn't effectively spread wildfires. Not my area of expertise.