Help me wrap my brain around this: Houses lost in the fire shouldnt have been built there?
There are certainly things you can do to lessen the risk of fire. Use of better fire-resistant materials, for instance. Keeping dry grass/brush cleared away from your house is another. Even then, there's always a chance of something bad happening. There is no 100% safe place to live. Fire and flood are two common problems. There's also earthquakes, mudslides, sinkholes, avalanches, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, high winds, hail, thunderbolts, and lightening.
People need to do a better job of brush clearance. It suppose to be 200 feet all around. Which is a little hard when you have pine trees leaning against your home. In all fairness. It's pretty hard to protect your home when you have some maniac setting fires on very windy days. You see the cities are well established and people went to those types of areas to build. The views are great but they also get visitors in the form of Bears and Mountain Lions. Plus if you like Horses (and many do) you have to go outside the city limits due to zoning laws.
I personally believe that building anything anywhere in California is a bad idea. The whole state is either A) on a fault line B) In a flood/mudslide prone area C) Close to fire hazards. I'm sure it's a gorgeous place, but as for living there, no way. It's just too risky. Buy property in Utah. It'll be the West Coast before long. Sorry about the fires there though. That truly sucks for the folks who choose to live there.
