The aftermath beyond the destruction.

California & Hawaii Hotlist Questions and Discussion
#143

My brother and I have property that bumps up against a dilapidated orchard. To get permission to go onto the property to clear brush farther back from our property line, we would have to sign waivers of liability. I’m sure if I got injured enough to require medical attention, my medical insurance company would sue them in an effort to recover their loss. The company that owns the property hires someone to do the minimum work to meet the legal requirements of clearance, but that is not enough. The orchard has already burned a couple of times in the last two decades, but the fuel load has still grown back, with tall grass and berry vines in with the broken trees.

And right there is a big part of your uphill battle in vegetation management: That stuff grows back.

On another side, I saw a news story about a program in Napa County about where CF would make a chipper available to property owners, and I think it was at no additional cost to the property owner, thereby helping property owners clear the brush around their homes. One property owner interviewed complained that he should get paid, or a tax break, for clearing the brush around his property, using a chipper that is already provided at no additional cost to him. I’ll just leave that there, I’ve been trying to cut down on my use of objectionable language.

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#144

That is another major problem in all this, the assumption that a majority of people understand how things work, or how fire behaves. I remember years ago a local letter to the editor, a lady was complaining that she had to clear the brush behind her house because without it a fire would just race up to the back of the house, the brush would slow down the fire.

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#145
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#146

So for discussion sake, if the media is going to cite the termination of the LAFD Chief it’s because there was inadequate staffing or translated, was not a staffing pattern in place to hold personnel, The chief was terminated ultimately because of this…

LA Times Article,delayed staffing, inadequate road sustems

So a little bit of comparison for discussion of knee jerk potential and effects in the wake of.

In the years past Federal Incident Commanders started to carry personal liability insurance as department backing was not always absolute. Seeing that the Chiefs termination is being blamed as this being one of the factors could we see:

Direction or change in forest augmented staffing for increased indices for more of a liability or self-preservation maneuver, more so than what has been past practice or the right thing?

Increase staffing patterns for fear of being held personally responsible in the realm of “what if” for fire or incident potential?

I feel these are valid questions as the wake and result a finger pointing always ends up as someone’s fault. And again it has to be someone’s fault in government not property owners selection of location to live, decorative vegetation, or inadequate pre-planning for departure.

And to couple with the governor’s request for nearly 40 billion dollars … 350 million of that is to go to USFS and NWCG for repairs and “preventative” measures. 14 page request for $40 billion

It’s almost laughable that the last line item on the list seems to be the usual lineup… The least amount and the last thing to try and prevent it from happening again.

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#147

There always has to be a goat and that surely will not be the career political machine elected mayor.
This is ultimately a circular firing squad between these players and truly sad for the public, who as stated needs to bear a portion of the blame but will be lost in this fog of political war

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