The Woolsey Fire – Observations from the PCH
The steep rolling hills and deep canyons are still burnt black from the fire, but green sprouts are starting up from the recent rains. Many houses survived while the all the surrounding vegetation burned – due to extra-ordinary work by the firefighters and good maintenance by the homeowners of their adjacent lands. The rubbish trucks are all over the place hauling out the debris from the burned homes, and electrical and phone company trucks are everywhere restoring vital services.
We cannot wholly prevent this devastation from our now nearly annual fires, but we can do a far better job of locating and siting homes. As homeowners, many of us can do a better job landscaping our homes to reduce our own and the community’s hazard. As communities, we can better support firefighters and those politicians trying to slow climate change and wean us from fossil fuel reliance and pushing for stronger environmental protections. We can cut and clear out all those dead trees in the hills and mountains that have succumbed to the drought. We can support and then better tolerate electrical interruptions during fierce Santa Ana winds so that whole communities do not burn and their residents perish.
Lastly we can register, and we can vote, and we can begin to hold accountable those who we have elected to positions of power whenever they fail to protect our common good.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 12/17/18