> making home insurance cover the true cost of the risk homeowners should assume for their voluntary decision to live in fire prone areas. Yes, they should pay the necessarily high premiums to live in these areas and protect their property. Why should everyone else subsidize this?
Thank you. It's the clearest solution to this problem and likely the only financially viable one. The years where exurban sprawl into every corner of the redwoods made economic sense are long passed.
But what if you are unable to move, e.g. for financial reasons?
It seems unfair that people who live in the woods and who live technologically simple lives would have to pay for the climate change induced by our modern lifestyles.
Living in fire prone areas is part of the modern lifestyle. People only started to build communities there once aggressive fire suppression policies were instituted. Before then, the builder/owner assumed all the risk.
The fires aren't caused by climate change, even if it's making them worse. Building a community out of combustible materials in fire prone areas, while suppressing natural fuel removal via fire suppression policies, is a much more direct cause for loss of property.
People who move to these places will continue to vote for this crap… better for us as individuals not supportive of moral hazards at play here (these are not the only examples of some taking excessive risk, only to realize the costs of doing so onto others when it falls apart) to figure out a ways to not contribute financially to the racket so they can burn/flood themselves on their own dime.
Are homes in these areas in the US built with rooftop sprinkler systems, compulsory rain water storage and so on to address the threat of fire?
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002...
https://www.sciencealert.com/logging-forests-to-halt-wildfir...
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/31/logging-wildfire-fore...
What evidence is there that logging reduces fires or fire severity?
A far bigger problem than environmental groups are those opposed to building regulations requiring homes be made out of non-combustible materials. Across mountain communities we continue to see materials that are more combustible than dead trees being used to build new homes. You can see the effect of this in fires: homes burned to ash, surrounding by scorched but not incinerated trees. The house burned hotter because of the materials it was made out of.
Homeowners, and local governments, consistently oppose retasking forest service fire fighting budgets, and making home insurance cover the true cost of the risk homeowners should assume for their voluntary decision to live in fire prone areas. Yes, they should pay the necessarily high premiums to live in these areas and protect their property. Why should everyone else subsidize this? It's not like living in fire prone areas has any national economic benefit, unlike living in certain flood prone areas: agriculture, and port cities.
Where we shouldn't be federally insuring homes from floods is on the goddamn beaches with not a farm or port for 100 miles. Those houses should only be able to get private, for-profit, hazard insurance - to help discourage people from building in risky areas, or suck it up and bear the true cost of managing the risk.