Monday, November 17, 2008

California Burns…Again!

Why???

My thoughts, by de Andréa

Even though I am all too familiar with the threat of wild fire, as I watch the raging devastation in LA on TV from the comfort of my home, it nevertheless seems so surreal.

On the news, as I listened while a firefighter articulates how he has been fighting fires like this for twenty years, I couldn’t help but thinking…Why? . Have we actually been so busy fighting fires in California for the past twenty years, that we do not have time to do some fire prevention? The same type of land, if not in some cases the same land, burns over and over again. And yet we do little or nothing to prevent it.

In many cases it is a contrary issue that causes the land to be especially susceptible to fire, meaning that we purposely allow the land to become a fire hazard.

Whether it is done purposely or because it is political or the lack of foresight, the result is the same, we are faced with perpetually UNCONTROLLED WILDFIRES.

If less than half the time, and only half the money, were spent on prevention and a plan of how to put them out, we might still have fires, they would however, be controlled. But alas, we instead continue to give in to the air-head eco-nuts and leave everything to “Nature” so instead of a controlled fire we have wildfires causing damage beyond anyone’s worst night-mare.

Earlier this year, the fires went wild and totally uncontrolled in my area as well, causing me to ready myself to evacuate, not once but twice. Thank God the fires were stopped before they reached my neighborhood here in the foothills of northern Ca. Many were not so lucky. If you have ever seen the aftermath of a wildfire, it is truly devastating. One homeowner likened it to an atomic blast. There is just nothing left standing, save an occasional residual skeleton of a chimney, moreover, the ground is just ash, ash, ash and more ash.

One of the reasons I know that just a little prevention goes a long way, such as a fire break for example; even in the hurried pressure of fighting the fire that approached our town, a doublewide firebreak was hurriedly cut at the edge of town as a last minute ditch effort to save the town. This last minute bit of prevention is what finally saved the entire town and sent the fire racing across the apron of the ridge toward the community college. They again made a bulldozed path; this time around the perimeter of the college, and again the result was that the college was saved as well.

Too little, and too late, for many living just outside and below the town, the fire raced uninhibited across miles of grassland strewn with the fuel of underbrush, live and dead trees with not a break in its path, many homes were lost until a hurried break was cut.

If just the wild land surrounding towns were systematically grid [ed] with fire breaks and the underbrush and dead fuel were removed and a plan to stop any wildfire racing toward homes and towns before the next fire starts, and it will; then the devastation and loss of homes and property could be cut to a bear minimum. The wild land will eventually recover on its own, that is just the nature of things, but a home, even though it can physically be rebuilt, is lost for good and the cost is phenomenal.

One would think…That is, if in fact one would actually think, put aside for a moment ones ecological ideology about the untouchable nature of things, and look just a little ahead and down the road, pursue solidarity regarding the reality of the need of defense against the ravages of this uncontrolled devastation, we could make the future of wildfire a little less wild.

When ones own philosophic well meaning but misdirected ideologies are either the cause, or even just promote such disasters, then it may be time to re-evaluate ones programmed indoctrinations. The cost for this kind of Idealism has proven to be too great.

Humanity my friend, and what we hold dear, is also part of the ecological equation…

de Andrea

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