Rich, poor, farmers, ranchers, middle class; all kinds have property in forests. And firefighters work to protect them all pretty much equally.

As for your last sentence, that could apply evenly to any natural disaster. The [ocean|tectonic plates|flood plains|super cells] were there first. Let's stop protecting [hurricane|tornado|tsunami|earthquake] victims from loss due to their poor decisions.

Nobody tries to stop hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami, or earthquakes because there's no way to stop them. Fire needs to happen and forests are being destroyed by the lack of it.

And, no, we shouldn't be bailing out people who build stick-built homes in flood plains. There are house designs built to withstand occasional flooding; you don't want to spend for that, then you shouldn't be bailed out.

> Rich, poor, farmers, ranchers, middle class; all kinds have property in forests.

And none of them should.

Why? Have you spent time living outside a city?

Yes, but so? We shouldn't just be indiscriminately building anywhere we want, and risking lives.

Well then we should get rid of a lot of our cities because they are disasters waiting to happen. California has many millions of people living near fault lines. Talk about risking lives!

In Australia we regularly have 'back burning' or 'controlled burns' where the fire brigade waits for a cool, non windy day and sets a bush fire around houses. This happens every few years so that when bush fires occur the area around houses has less combustible material and either places dont need firefighters or the firefighters can more easily protect property, letting the fire do its thing in non-critical areas.

Also through bush land they cut roads which also service as firebreaks, that way bush fires hit these gaps and should stop a proportion of the time.

Anyway, my point is I dont know we need to hate on 'rich people's houses' because 1) I would say even more ordinary people have houses in the bush, at least in Australia, and this feels like personal hatred without knowing your area and 2) Australia has clearly shown people can manage an enviroment (with occasional exceptions) to live within a bush/forest fire area.

I'm not sure how supported or funded this is in the states. And in Australia we have large volunteer groups of bush firefighters that help with back burns and when larger outbreaks of bush fires occur to increase manpower.

This isn't a simple class thing. Rural areas aren't just populated by rich evil bankers with mountaintop villas; they're predominantly settled by poor rural whites who have owned land for generation and do not have the means to easily leave.

I believe, at least in California, households that have taken some effort to make their property more resilient to fire are given higher priority. I heard an interview with a firefighter on the radio talking about this a few weeks back.

Similarly, I hear houses that have been allowed to become completely indefensible (e.g., boughs on the roof, no fire clearing) are simply abandoned.

That depends on where you live. I can't have tress within 30 feed of my house, had to have a fire rated roof, etc. I wasn't going to complain about rules like that, especially with ash and embers raining down last night!

I've seen some very nice houses with tress so close you can reach out the window and touch the trunk. I guess they have another home to go to when that one burns.

No, I think they just expect firefighters will lay down their lives defending their property, and installing a fire rated roof because you live in a fire zone is "burdensome".

(by abandoned, I meant the firefighters abandon the doomed houses that do not have defensible space)

It still prevents regular fires from being set in that area.

For what it is worth, the huge fire linked to by the parent wasn't in a forest, but I suppose people shouldn't live outside of a city?

For some of us, living in a city seems as stupid as living outside of one seems to others. Each has their risk, but when a person is mugged or killed in a city I don't blame them for a poor decision.