California and the fire this time
It's hard not to admire the determination of Southern Californians who returned to find their homes smoking heaps of rubble
Dale McFeattersSouthern Californians are often accused of being overly afflicted with touchy-feelyism, but to that trait must be added generous amounts of stoicism and fatalism. And it's hard not to admire the determination to rebuild of Southern Californians who returned to find their homes smoking heaps of rubble.
Many, maybe most, veteran Southern Californians knew these wildfires were coming. After several years of drought and a beetle infestation, the hillsides and canyons were choked with dry brush and dead trees, Mother Nature's own tinder. When the furnace-like Santa Ana winds came, driven by a remote weather front, the cycle was almost complete. Bad luck and pure malice — arsonists — completed the circle.
| There is nothing the government can do about San Diego going without rain for 175 days and counting. Nor can it do anything about the two immutable facts of climate and topography — why people want to live there in the first place. | ||
As of Monday, at least 10 fires stretching from the Mexican border to Los Angeles' northern suburbs had killed 13, destroyed 825 homes and endangered at least 30,000 others and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people while thousands more were told to pack and stand by.
Hospitals and prisons were evacuated, schools shut down, highways were closed, large areas were without power, airline flights canceled and large areas blanketed with ash that fell like a noxious gray-black snow. Even the Monday night football game decamped from San Diego to Tempe, Ariz.
As bad as this wildfire is, it is not — and, one fervently hopes, won't be — the state's worst in terms of either deaths or property destruction. A 1991 fire outside of Oakland killed 25 and destroyed 3,200 dwellings. A survey by the Associated Press listed 11 lethal and destructive major wildfires going back to 1933.
The federal government has promised money for brush-clearing and tree-thinning, measures that may do some modest good. Tougher fire codes and zoning might help. But there is nothing the government can do about San Diego going without rain for 175 days and counting. Nor can it do anything about the two immutable facts of climate and topography — why people want to live there in the first place.
The firefighters will sooner or later gain control of the wildfires. Southern Californians will determinedly set about rebuilding. The seasonal rains will come and the hillsides and canyons will turn green with new shoots and saplings. And the cycle will begin again.
