I used to live in San Diego so I am familiar with most of the burned areas.

I worked in Spring Valley and lived in El Cajon. I did remediation work in Tierrasanta. I'm trying to put this in perspective so people who haven't been there can understand the terrain where people live.

If you live on Ohio, where I moved from you build your house on relatively flat land that gets rained on off and on all year. The places that were burned are nothing like that. It is hilly with canyons and gullies and covered with dry brush that hasn't seen rain in months. That is the terrain where you build your house in eastern San Diego county and north county.

What I am trying to say is that those whose homes burned are not being eccentric and building where they shouldn't. They will always be subject to fire, mud slides, earth quakes and high wind. That is the nature of the place.

So, if you are thinking that these people should not rebuild on land that they more than likely still owe a mortgage on, bite me right in the ass!.

CB

I remember this from my younger days.

As I said before, the "standard" California wildfire is in the hills away from population centers. Houses that are lost are generally the outliers in canyons between those hills or the very edges of populated areas. The biggest one I can remember was back in the early '60s, when the hills above West L.A. and Beverly Hills burned. Lots of homes in Bel-Air were lost, but that was a new hilltop development at the time, and fit the description of at-risk housing.

One of the basic "rules" was that, however bad the fire might be in the hills, it would never descend into population centers. When I was living in Northridge in October 1979, there were fires in all the hills around the north and east end of the Valley. I actually drove up into the hills to get a better look at the fire, and wound up driving along hillside roads with a line of flames barely fifty feet away. (Since the flames were small and not traveling all that fast, I was in no danger). But there was never any thought that the fire could travel the two miles into the center of Northridge around our apartment. By normal California wildfire standards, we were as safe as if we'd been in a snowbank in the middle of Minnesota.

Similarly, my mother lives in Rancho Bernardo. In the early days (1978-82), after she and my father moved there, it was still on the outlying area of North County housing -- it was not uncommon for them to take walks into the hills and see rattlesnakes sunning themselves on rocks. But, over the years, as one development and then another sprung up and claimed those hills, their house became more or less part of a small city center -- quite built-up and suburban. Although losing the wide-open spaces was somewhat unfortunate from an aesthetic sense, one comforting thought to me was that they (and, later, she) were now far enough away from the uninhabited chaparral hills that autumn fires were of no more danger to them than they are to me up in rainy Seattle. Last Sunday night, when the first reports of the Witch Creek Fire reached the airwaves, my mom and I had a phone conversation where we both took it for granted that, although the air quality would be unpleasant for a few days because of the smoke, the fires posed no threat to her. After all, the fire was fifteen or more miles away, with one town and a whole lot of suburban development between that fire and Rancho Bernardo.

That call ended at around 10 P.M. By 5:00 A.M., when my mom got the call to evacuate, houses were on fire a quarter-mile up the road from her. It had travelled more than fifteen miles in seven hours, and struck right in the middle of a suburban center. That is not normal California wildfire behavior, not by any stretch of the imagination. This was simply a once-in-a-lifetime combination of a two-year drought, unusually strong Santa Ana winds, and fires that sprung up in precisely the right place to be carried into population centers. I doubt you'll see anything like this again.

And it seems a bigger risk to build here when property values plummet with each factory or business closing.

Instead of a sudden disaster, it's more of a slow bleed.
At least in SoCal, they can still call off from work.

I moved from the northeast to California for work related reasons.
I'm in Norcal.
People asked how can you move into an earthquake zone.
The answer is because there are FAR fewer deaths from earthquakes than there are from winter storms.
I was more likely to die of a heart attack shovelling my walk than I am to die from an earthquake or wildfire combined.

The decision was not an ignorant decision. Its a fact.
I could have more property loss related to earthquake or wildfire here than in the northeast. True.
But even then my expected result from increased income, real estate appreciation, lower taxes, improved opportunities for recreation say that California is a better place for me to be.

isn't inherently at risk of conflagration. Some just more so than others. When it hits 3% humidity and 100 degrees and 75 mph winds, technically NO ONE is safe.

the terrain and the weather conditions. The couple of times I've driven in the San Bernardino/Riverside, San Diego and Orange County areas--from time to time, over the last few decades--I've been utterly astounded and shocked at new housing subdivision after new housing subdivisions after new housing subdivision, for miles and miles and miles, spread like a cancer over tinderbox grassy hills and former wetlands and wildlands, and up into the foothills and mountains, recently plagued with bark beetle infestation in the pine forests (possibly caused, ultimately, by smog), with many thousands of acres of dead and dying trees waiting for a spark for it all to go up flames.

I can't say anything about individual homebuilders and their decisions, but I smell tremendous corruption and greed in the carelessness and irresponsibility and lack of accountability that these millions of new homes may represent, sprung up everywhere in highly flammable areas with inadequate water, and also the sheer massive assault on the environment is striking, not to mention the forests that have been mowed down, in California and elsewhere, to construct all these new homes. It is insane to build with new wood any more, given global warming. (We must find alternatives!) But to build with wood in these areas of Southern California is doubly insane. I doubt very much that the real estate speculators and developers, and the politicians who are in their pay, take any of the risk. I'd bet money that the buyers are not fully apprised of the risk, and that the banks and insurers are well-cushioned, but the buyers are not.

Some wildfires are inevitable. Some are even natural. And fires are unpredictable, it's true. But this many fires, of this big a size, sweeping away thousands of homes, indicates irresponsibility and greed somewhere along the line, and I think I've named the likely culprits. There is also the total irresponsibility of the Bush government, squandering trillions of dollars, trying to steal the Iraqis' oil, and leaving our fire departments and national guard short on equipment and manpower, and the highly corrupt San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside County Republican establishments, who have supported it all. These are three of the most corrupt counties in the state, as to election officials--which is reflective of the general county corruption.

I read that the former fire chief of San Diego resigned last year because of underfunding. Who's fault was that? What kind of congressional and state legislators do these counties have? The worst! The most corrupt, the most bribed, the most unethical, and no doubt the most in-the-pockets of rich landowners and real estate interests. "Duke" Cunningham & co. Why do you think they want to put a Blackwater training camp in San Diego? Because they have the most insecure and insider riggable voting machines in the state! That's where they were taking the voting machines home and storing them in their cars or garages overnight, before using them in elections. Blackwater is going to need rigged voting machines to get their plan approved, and to keep a mercenary-friendly political establishment in power.

I feel great sympathy for the homeowners. I'm sure most of them thought it was safe when they bought--because they were TOLD it was! The "little guy" in these situations is seldom at fault. And they're probably mostly all responsible homeowners, who took the precautions they were advised about (or found out about on their own)--none of which help much in these kinds of conflagrations. They should be given all the help they need--if we have anything left in our coffers after the Bushite lootings (including their first one--the Enron looting of California's $10 billion budget surplus). But I think the political corruption around land, water and development in this area is very great, and should be investigated--as to these fires, and other environmental and human impacts.

them? Unless you can make land on the ocean like in Tokyo I don't see where you can build other than in the hills.

Orange, San Diego, and San Bernardino counties have seemingly been awash in that corruption for nearly a century. Fire protection has been the Achilles Heel almost forever. It seems apparent that the crony pols have been starving that protection, not even coming close to keeping up with the sprawl, to line their pockets.

When I was a kid living in Glendale in the early 50s, fire protection was Job #1 ... and every kid in elementary school knew it. I played in the foothills above Verdugo Avenue in those days - BEFORE the freeways cut through and development ran rampant. The fire patrols and fire trails were a constant. They were obsessive about keeping the fire breaks cleared.

I lived in So Cal for 33 years until we moved away 10 years ago-that's why I know you are totally spot on with this post! :thumbsup:

"but that house had a tile roof, and stucco (or whatever the term is) on its walls! It SHOULDN'T have burnt!" He was amazed at much of it.

And yes, is walking away from a piece of land best for everyone? For some perhaps but it is all up to the individual and I can see big reasons for many to want to or have to stay.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2141076&mesg_id=2141076

Without really getting down to hard numbers and specifics, I find it hard to accept (as a matter of science) your hypothesis. You'd have to look at the chances of fire (how many times or fraction of one time per century, for example, would fire be expected) and even if fire DOES whip through there are many other variables like what surrounds (or doesn't) the house, the element of chance from random embers, the speed of state and federal (hint to link above) responses, etc.

and everyone rebuilds right back up

Or sarcasm?

Or just a display of pure malevolent ignorance?