California Fire Storm

Who or what is to blame for the horrendous wild fires in California?

• Fox News Blames al-Qaeda
• Glenn Beck blames the environmentalists
• Libertarian Lew Rockwell blames the Socialists
• It's being blamed on global warming
• And it's being blamed on the Iraq war

I suggested something else to blame yesterday, too many people. In reality it's too many people with little or no planning for the inevitable wild fires. A wild fire of this intensity is not unprecedented and in fact should be expected. In an area where planning for the inevitable earthquake is the norm there has been little or no consideration given to wild fires. Most areas did ban cedar shake roofs several years ago but that's about it. Lew Rockwell was probably the most wrong. What was and is needed is more government intervention. Developments and communities could be designed and built in ways that would minimize fire danger. If the infrastructure can be designed to survive earthquakes they can be designed to minimize the damage from wild fires. And that brings us to another problem. The rain will eventually come and there will be landslides and mud flows. The impact of these could be minimized as well.