I'm going to come down a little bit on Linus's side here. The number of fires might be exacerbated by climate change, but California has always had shitloads of massive fires. As he said, there's no rain for half the year, a ton of dried out brush, and hot, powerful, super-dry winds blow offshore. It's perfect conditions for fires, and that has always been the case.
The biggest problem for California is the number of homes that are being built in the exurban fringes, right on the edge of fire zones, right next to the brush. These have gone up exponentially in recent years, meaning that massively more homes and lives are at risk than used to be the case.
I know it's wrong of me, but I feel so much less sympathy for the people with their $20m homes in Topanga Canyon than I do for the poor bastards in Paradise. Kim Kardashian and Guillermo del Toro are going to be fine to buy another house or rebuild. Malibu might be iconic, but the residents can largely afford to fix any problems that come from this fire provided they weren't idiots and actually did evacuate. That's not true of a town like Paradise.
The biggest problem for California is the number of homes that are being built in the exurban fringes, right on the edge of fire zones, right next to the brush. These have gone up exponentially in recent years, meaning that massively more homes and lives are at risk than used to be the case.
I know it's wrong of me, but I feel so much less sympathy for the people with their $20m homes in Topanga Canyon than I do for the poor bastards in Paradise. Kim Kardashian and Guillermo del Toro are going to be fine to buy another house or rebuild. Malibu might be iconic, but the residents can largely afford to fix any problems that come from this fire provided they weren't idiots and actually did evacuate. That's not true of a town like Paradise.
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