California Fires

[evildave]

Yeah and all the cry babies who live on the east coast that get whooped by hurricanes, and you people who live in the midwest with your tornado's Mobile homes? what are you people thinking, and you people in Hawaii with your volcano's, and the northeast with the drought and Alaska with the earthquakes, not to mention the people living in flood plains and forests, Damn it everyone move to Idaho, oh wait except you people of color, and non-christians, and well Ok so not Idaho...Luxemburg were all moving to Luxembourg.

So, what? You're saying people should be insured when they wilfully build in flood plains? On coastlines that flood out practically every year? People should be insured when they build on a known volcano?

Sure, why not? Insure them for everything *but* a flood. Insure them for anything *but* earthquake/volcano damage. Insure them for anything *but* a brushfire.

After all, you and I are paying the difference to make that insurance coverage affordable. Fire insurance in those areas *should* be "outrageous".

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Period.

And now the state wants to spend 3 billion to "prevent" wildfires. That's TAX dollars. So, on top of subsidising people building in stupid places by making the insurance companies charge "reasonably" and federally backing insurance of this nature with tax dollars, the state's going to further subsidise rural sprawl by spending more money as the fires have damaged so far on "prevention" every single year.

I'm sure the real estate developers will be only too happy to build more scattered homes on hillsides, knowing their profits will be backed by state revenue.

 

[shuize]

You know, with as many houses destroyed as there are (2600 and counting), when the fires finally die down there's going to be a nice little construction boom (despite evildave's protestations to the contrary) as people move back and rebuild in the exact same places.

 

[SRW]

So, what? You're saying people should be insured when they wilfully build in flood plains? On coastlines that flood out practically every year? People should be insured when they build on a known volcano?

Sure, why not? Insure them for everything *but* a flood. Insure them for anything *but* earthquake/volcano damage. Insure them for anything *but* a brushfire.

After all, you and I are paying the difference to make that insurance coverage affordable. Fire insurance in those areas *should* be "outrageous".

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Period.

And now the state wants to spend 3 billion to "prevent" wildfires. That's TAX dollars. So, on top of subsidising people building in stupid places by making the insurance companies charge "reasonably" and federally backing insurance of this nature with tax dollars, the state's going to further subsidise rural sprawl by spending more money as the fires have damaged so far on "prevention" every single year.

I'm sure the real estate developers will be only too happy to build more scattered homes on hillsides, knowing their profits will be backed by state revenue.

So what is your solution, bar people from the Eastern Seaboard, the west coast is all earthquake country no one can live west of Nevada? The Midwest is likely to have twisters so that is also out.

Where are you going to and be absolutely sure that no disaster will happen. You cannot.

They may lose 20,000 homes but there will still be millions left in places that could burn... where should they go?

And by the way, if you do live in one of the higher risk areas you pay and extra premium on your taxes.

 

[Tmy]

Whats up with the fore death count??? Its not like a huge fire just creeps up on you??!?!! ARe these dead people just idiots who refused to evacuate. Shouldnt cause of death be "stupidity" instead of "fire".

 

[Rocky]

Rain!

Can you beileve it, it's raining! For the first time in four months it started to rain.

The house where I grew up was in an area that could have had a very bad burn but we were lucky. Now the nearest burnable hillside is almost a mile away from that house. Many of the buildings that have burned are ranches, big and small. Not much you can do to save a ranch if the owner lers the brush get to close or too thick.

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Actually, the homes are NOT likely to be distroyed, they just have a higher chance of it; perhaps 1% higher than average. Remember that almost all of the houses in Southern California were in no danger and most of those that were in danger survived.

 

[SRW]

Re: Rain!

Can you beileve it, it's raining! For the first time in four months it started to rain.

The house where I grew up was in an area that could have had a very bad burn but we were lucky. Now the nearest burnable hillside is almost a mile away from that house. Many of the buildings that have burned are ranches, big and small. Not much you can do to save a ranch if the owner lers the brush get to close or too thick.

Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Actually, the homes are NOT likely to be distroyed, they just have a higher chance of it; perhaps 1% higher than average. Remember that almost all of the houses in Southern California were in no danger and most of those that were in danger survived.

Wow great news about the rain!!!!!

(quote evil Dave) Developers should not be allowed to build new homes where they are likely to be destroyed.

Also, as far as developing, where do you set the borders. By definition, where the houses stop, the brush country starts. To stop something like this you would have to set up a do not cross line and pave it with a 1/4 mile stretch of concrete. Not very practical.

 

[evildave]

Ahh, but it's so much more economical to clear brush around a whole neighborhood. It's not so economical to do so when they build three houses on a hilltop, and three more homes on the next hill, dotting them along a ridgeline.

But I can see how some people would believe it's far more economical to build houses scattered as thinly as possible across the most territory, as opposed to clumping them together in communities that are easily defended against fire.

After all, the population density never quite gets high enough to require those extra fire houses.

 

[MoeFaux]

I'm in Vegas this week (I got my tonsils out), and on Tuesday you could smell the smoke from the CA fires. The air was thick with it and it was really smoggy. It was bad.
It's been really windy the past day, though, so I can't smell the smoke anymore. But, man, how serious is that that it's showing signs of it in Vegas?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Not to disrepect the loss of the dead and those who've had their houses burned... but the fires were clearly God punishing California for electing Arnold.