[ExI] California wildfires some of largest in state history

[SR Ballard]

My father has done controlled burns, 1-2x per year at his work for about 15 years now, and about 8 years traveling all over Florida on burn team.

Now, Florida is of course much wetter, but wetter also usually means the fuel builds up faster. 

I don’t know that he’s ever been on a fire which damaged property. In every situation where it was even a worry, they get the FD to proactively hose down the houses. 

No property or civilian has ever been hurt during these burns he has worked on, but a few years ago some firefighters cleared out of the wrong valley. They went into their emergency tents but the blaze was much too hot and so they were quite done in the middle by the time the fire had passed. 

They changed radio procedures after that (they thought they were in the safe valley but instead had left the safe one to go into the dangerous one on accident), but my mother has never let him go back, and now he is too old. 

It could probably just be written into law that burns have some kind of qualified immunity, where they are only liable for damages if there is a clear and flagrant disregard for health and safety.

SR Ballard

> On Aug 22, 2020, at 2:31 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of SR
> Ballard via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] California wildfires some of largest in state history
> 
> 
> 
>> ...Do controlled burns in the winter.
> 
> SR Ballard
> 
> 
> It's been proposed, and is done (in a sense (depending on how you one
> interprets the clearing and burning the slash piles.))
> 
> Unknown which discourages the fire department from doing more of that: it is
> unclear who is liable if the fire gets outta control, which is always a
> risk.  Suppose the fire marshal is burning slash piles and accidentally sets
> someone's cabin on fire.  Who pays?  Do we?
> 
> On the other hand, the electric company didn't start this one (as it did a
> coupla years ago (when my friend's house in Paradise California was sent
> into the stratosphere by PG&E (and fortunately didn't send him and his bride
> up with it.)))
> 
> https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/879008760/pg-e-pleads-guilty-on-2018-californ
> ia-camp-fire-our-equipment-started-that-fire
> 
> PG&E was found guilty, but it is chapter 11.  Our friends are lucky if they
> see a nickel on the dollar of what that place was worth.
> 
> If the county government did that, they couldn't pay.  If the state
> government did that, they couldn't pay.  If the federals did that, they
> couldn't pay.
> 
> These latest fires were started by a freak lightning storm, so we can sue
> god, but from the size of this fire and the structures already lost, that
> guy couldn't pay either, even with the cows on a kilohill:
> 
> https://biblia.com/bible/esv/psalm/50/10-11
> 
> God has a lotta money, but the cost of this fire would put even god into
> chapter 11.
> 
> spike
> 
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