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These days, you almost always see two CHP cars for a routine traffic stop (officer safety you know). The same scaling is true for any kind of altercation; a small army descends. Can you imagine the bill for all that pre-positioned equipment the rest of the time?

The last time there was a major fire around here (the Summit Fire), it was instructive to note the line of CDF trucks for days on end in a staging area miles away, having nothing to do with firefighting, sitting there burning diesel and "earning" overtime, laughing, carrying on... The guys taking most of the real risks were the pilots and prison crews.

The work rules for firefighters have been rewritten so that women can do the job. Needless to say, they were under-represented in the officer corps, so bunches of them were promoted over experienced males. When they come to "inspect" our place, these babes pretend to be the experts, when in fact they are clueless. I've fought massive burn piles on this land in places they tell me they won't even go. If there is a blaze some day, I don't want these people even near my house unless I'm somehow not home so that I can start a backfire down the hill in peace. A suit, a hose, and a drip torch is all I need. From what I can tell, they don't give a crap if my home stands or falls anyway.

There's no amount of money I should spend to make things easier for them, even if their specifications are unproven and turn out to be ineffective or even counterproductive (like enclosed sofits). As things are now, the County fire captain is clearly in cahoots with the local material suppliers, constantly rewriting specifications to sell more and more of their goods, whether they work or not. I had to install 275' of 4" pipe because they wanted it for the trucks they might have "someday." I know one neighbor who, to get a remodel permit, had to triple the size of the driveway in front of his house for a hook and ladder truck, even though there is absolutely NO WAY that truck could ever get up the county road to the house, much less up the lower part of his driveway!

I dedicated a hilltop for emergency evacuation on my plot plan before I built my home. They approved it and then wouldn't take the landing coordinates for two years (I raised hell until they did). Then, years later, they showed up demanding four times as much land for the purpose.

It wasn't that way even twenty years ago. Those guys knew what firefighting is about but they're long retired now on fat pensions. The real dirty work of firefighting these days is done by CCC prison crews.