Morford: Should you really build a home in the (wildfire-prone) woods?

[madokie]

Lousy forest management. Pitiless climate change. Increasing urban congestion. Savage droughts, intense storms and relentless overdevelopment, more and more people (like this very columnist) hoping/wishing to escape the madding crowds and build a gentle oasis out in the woods, a place where the dog can run free and the kid can play with the chickens and everyone can roam around without fear of stepping on a heroin needle or nervously checking the car every morning for a smashed window or a $250 parking ticket.

This much we know: A large part of what fueled the ferocious wine country fires, the deadliest and most destructive in state history? The factors that made them so supremely dangerous and unstoppable? A modern, rather unprecedented combination of the ingredients above, and even a few more.

Which is to say: Not only are we little prepared for what's happening to the planet, for how she is fast devolving, overheating, freezing, burning, flooding and flicking us away like well-meaning, but severely ignorant, irritants, we are making it all much worse.
READ ANOTHER OPINION

The tragedy of the wine country fires begets a strange mix of claims, blames and shames: The underfunded U.S. Forest Service doesn't manage woodlands well. There are far too few controlled burns, minimal clearing of dead tinder, erratic logging practices, the active disallowing of Mother Nature to burn and clear as she, quite naturally, is wont to do.


http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Should-you-really-build-a-home-in-the-12285901.php?utm_source=email&utm_content=newsletter&utm_campaign=sfg_notesanderrata

[Merlot]

1. I stopped reading t "lousy forrest management"

Does he know how much the forrest service budget has been slashed?

[madokie]

2. Isn't that what he's getting at?

[mdbl]

3. I thought that too

I didn't think he was berating people working in the forest service.

[madokie]

5. Its not Morford to do that.

He's a good solid Democrat and sees our problems for what they are. In this case, funding

'CONs cut and cut some more then complain why shit can't or won't get done. ill-informed eat that shit up

[malaise]

4. Great read

Thanks

[dembotoz]

6. Or Houston building on a flood plain

I cry as I see more and more farms turned into suburban mc mansion

Brain dead land use is brain dead land use

[Chico Man]

7. Plenty of fairly priced rural woodsy properties up here in New England

But it gets cold and snowy. I'll take the cold and snow over drought and fire any day of the week!

So many of my classmates moved to California in search of the perfect climate. How many will move back?

[lostnfound]

8. Communities up in flames due to waivers obtained by developers on fireproofing

I read that simply the failure to block entrances to the attic was a huge source of the spread.

[SaintLouisBlues]

9. But, "the American way of life is not negotiable" to quote Darth Cheney

Good luck negotiating with climate change.

[B2G]

10. Morford, should you really live on a major fault line? Nt