[ExI] Homesteading away wildfires

[Stuart LaForge]

As a former Californian and present Nevadan, I am getting sick of all  
the wildfires that are burning in California and sending smoke into  
Nevada. The unbelievable amounts of small particulate matter in the  
smoke is directly harming my health and that of everybody else in the  
region. Aside from mere health concerns, the wildfires are wasting the  
lives of huge numbers of trees who have spent centuries growing and  
fixing carbon only to have all that carbon released back into the  
atmosphere to further exacerbate the climate change that is largely  
responsible for the fires in the first place.

Some other major contributing factors to this problem include the huge  
amount of dry underbrush and dead trees killed by the pine-borer  
beetle. In short, the wildfire problem is preventable by such  
techniques as clearing the dead wood and dry brush from the area and  
clearing overgrown areas. Since almost all of the wildfires happen on  
government-owned land, then it should be government's responsibility  
to keep their land well-maintained and fire-resistant. The knowledge  
and methods are already known. You could even coddle the spotted-owls,  
if you wanted.

http://www.nwfirescience.org/sites/default/files/publications/A%20Land%20Managers%20Guide%20for%20Creating%20Fire-resistant%20Forests%20.pdf

Unfortunately it costs something like $3500 per acre to make forests  
fire-resistant. So the federal government can't afford fire-scaping   
for a sufficient area to prevent the state from catching fire every  
year like clockwork and millions of acres to burn. I am not sure what  
the state government of California is doing or trying to do about the  
problem, but it certainly seems the state ought to take some  
initiative in the face of an inactive federal government.

Unbelievably despite having all these millions of acres of public land  
that the governments involved are declining to take responsibility  
for, California nonetheless has a pretty big homeless problem. I mean  
if people are defecating on sidewalks, maybe they are not hygienically  
cut out for city life. So perhaps this is a rare example where two of  
a state's problems can solve one another.

What I propose is that the government offer deed of property to any  
citizen who firescapes and settles some claimed area of designated  
wilderness land in accordance to environmental standards with the  
payment of the first year of property taxes for that land.

So now, in exchange for doing some manual labor digging and hauling  
wood formerly homeless people can now homestead and own several acres  
of wilderness that they can then roam at will, develop as they see  
fit, or live off the land, so long as they preserve the endangered  
species there upon.

Thoughts?

Stuart LaForge