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A comment on Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the years. Parent comment

Re:Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the y... by defrost on Friday January 30, 2026 @12:53AM (#46820993)
His general point appears to be pave over wild areas:

  No matter how much open space there is, it is never enough for environmental extremists, who will make political trouble if anyone is allowed to break up those miles and miles of solid vegetation with buildings, even though pavement and masonry don’t burn.

  In other words, government preserves all the conditions for wildfires and subsidizes people who live in their path.
He seems .. urbanised.

Not everybody wants to live on Trantor and the people local to the wildfires discussed in the article lived alongside and with them for 70,000 years sans parking lots.

On this matter Sowell appears to be unqualified, uninformed, and worse than an idiot.

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Re:Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the y... by postalcoder on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:11AM (#46821095)
I think it'd be productive to unhitch from the imperfect vessel that is Sowell.

Are you against controlled burns?

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Re:Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the y... by defrost on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:14AM (#46821113)
Nothing wrong at all with controlled burns / cool burns / fuel reduction / fire breaking / mosaicing / etc.

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKdZpRbzMk

et al. - I've spent much of the past month and a half on tender watch during harvest in an Australian summer - we had one day with 14 spot fires from lightning strikes just a few weeks past.

Detaching from Sowell is an excellent idea.

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Re:Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the y... by postalcoder on Friday January 30, 2026 @01:44AM (#46821245)
Indigenous people had it right. And yep, this was a distraction. My bad.
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Re:Interesting facts I've learned about wildfires over the y... by defrost on Friday January 30, 2026 @02:00AM (#46821324)
My apologies for a seeming over reaction, I had thought there might be something useful or relevant there to wildfires at large rather than wildfires as a prop to take a swipe at some disliked group in a small part of on US state.

Your inital point was correct though, wildfires are politicized.

The Australian Black Summer, the season that went viral across the globe, was heavily pounced upon by News Corp. et al to push a contra AGW climate change narrative .. which was staggering to watch unfold in the face of data to the contrary.

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