Excellent points. And let's not forget the costs that directly result from these non-sustainable practices. Here on the west side of Denver, insurance costs are not affordable - even for those of us who are not in "normal" wildfire areas. Something has to change.
A few years ago fort mcmurray in alberta Canada effectively ceased to exist due to wildfire. 88,000 were evacuated in one afternoon. A book describing the fire and global drying was written that describes the new nature of fire as described by a member of Cal fire. The book is
It was a community planning meth head at Spokane County who invited a city planning crack head manager from City of Spokane. The both of them met with 3 high af dope HOA managers. /ALL SIX/ neglecting every aspect of a firewise community plan. Blaming the "meth head" for the lack of good firewise practices, is like saying you understand ANY disability, 46mph wind gusts, and flying ember fire science in a red flag warning. You freaking don't count the druggies here. You count fire hydrants in Google Maps. I see zero in three subdivisions. <folds arms>. I guess that's enough for me to NOT BLAME a METH HEAD. I blame lack of firewise community planning.
Thanks again for the facts and the real story behind what this administration is doing and hiding from us! It was horrifying watching the Spokane fires and the immediate devastation. In AZ where I work and live (the metro area, and in Tempe) we have had to deal with extreme heat (been over 110 for 10 days at a time, hitting 116 on Sunday) and then some flooding when it does finally rain here and the ground is so hard. This summer the fires have been everywhere in the west and little rain. The Feds just stated that AZ, California and Nevada will take all the cuts of water from the Colorado River. It is a very scary time in the west!
Great example of why these grifters work so hard to get elected. The back door corruption and money to be made is nearly endless especially now with no oversight (looking at you Congress).
Good luck with Burgum doing anything he doesn't profit from, and Rollins doing anything that isn't promoted by the Heritage Foundation/Project 2025! Vote them all out ASAP!
You take my thoughts to the next level; thank you for this piece.
I see where this is going, at least if we let the current administration have its way. They will declare a 'War on Forests!' to justify wholesale logging of every tree (at least the profitable old growth ones) to protect us from the wooden menace.
They're desperately trying to fix a problem they caused by overplanting and creating a monoculture that beetles are all too eager to belly up to the buffet and take advantage of. Also, the lawn-like symmetry of same-age trees might make the OC among them feel good; it creates a perfect storm of matching crown heights to enable fires to spread at incredible speeds when the weather and winds align like they did this week.
Hear me out: I agree with you that it's impossible to implement a 100% suppression effort, for many reasons that include that a good burn in a natural forest makes a healthy forest. But when it comes to the human/property interface, like Spokane, we need to get our heads out of our collective asses.
The proposed DoD budget is now north of $1T per annum. Imagine if we redirected, say, 15% of that; $150 BILLION dollars to go all-in on fire defense. I'm not talking about overwhelming fires out in the wilderness; I'm talking about taking those defense-minded folks, research, and development, and using it to develop weapons to fight the fires that immediately threaten properties and lives; a fire like Spokane, like the Palisades, like Maui.
Imagine those Defense dollars developing squadrons of fire-fighting drones; not dozens, but thousands. Deploy them all over the fire-prone West. No more "We had to deploy our best resources to other areas" bullshit. Serious, DoD-caliber drones; not the plane-type ones we see fighting wars, but the quad-copter ones that are highly maneuverable and bulked up to carry tons of water. Now imagine 300 of them swooping down into the Spokane River and very tactically spreading out and heading toward the hotspots in the mazes of suburbia and dousing those most-threatening fires; fires that ground-based teams can't reach, and aircraft can't navigate to in the dense smoke. Hell, even use AI to help pilot them if that helps. No human pilots at risk, no minimum visibility issues, and the ability to get right down into the thick of the battle.
That's the commitment we need. Retreat from the foreign fronts of forever wars and bring the fight to the front lines here at home.
BTW, have you read Chad Hanson's Smokescreen? Highly recommend. Some folks might criticize him for doing some of his own research cherry-picking, but he has still has a lot of great discussions and on-the-ground research that he's done.
Great article -- this is the article that needed to be written about wildfires in the current era.
Dovetailing with the Edison finding in the Altadena fire, Newsom is now working behind closed doors with the big private utilities to pass yet more legislation limiting their liability for fires they cause by, among other things, eliminating the right for insurance companies to recover wildfire related costs from the utilities or other corporations for fires they cause, pushing the burden onto the public via even higher insurance rates. This follows previous legislation in recent years that allows utilities to shift increasingly more wildfire costs to consumers, despite their year-over-year record high profits.
While as Wes points out, there is much more to the picture, one of the last things we should be doing to reduce wildfires is reducing or eliminating liability of those who sometimes cause them through negligence, cost cutting, or poor management.
In his run-up to a presidential candidacy in 2028, Newsom has become very follow-the-money and has reversed course on so many environmental issues that I've lost count, including trying to railroad through the delta tunnels by using budget legislation that would have also included highly fascist moves like exempting the project from environmental review, eliminating the public from the process and eliminating the public's ability to bring lawsuits.
Policy changes and laws that eliminate or reduce public participation, and eliminate or reduce the ability to bring lawsuits are becoming favorite tools in the attack on democracy.
Climate change is caused in significant degree by the dehydration of soil. Which also causes forests and grasslands to burn. Thinking that C02 is the sole cause is folly. The water cycles have been altered by long term deforestation and draining wetlands, and compaction of soils. We are in the accelerating cycle of flood with erosion and failure of land absorbing water, followed by drought and then fire. Please study the ways that destruction of the biome and water cycle heat the earth. Thanks
Excellent points. And let's not forget the costs that directly result from these non-sustainable practices. Here on the west side of Denver, insurance costs are not affordable - even for those of us who are not in "normal" wildfire areas. Something has to change.
A few years ago fort mcmurray in alberta Canada effectively ceased to exist due to wildfire. 88,000 were evacuated in one afternoon. A book describing the fire and global drying was written that describes the new nature of fire as described by a member of Cal fire. The book is
Fireweather:the making of a beast.
Recomended reading to climate change deniers
It was a community planning meth head at Spokane County who invited a city planning crack head manager from City of Spokane. The both of them met with 3 high af dope HOA managers. /ALL SIX/ neglecting every aspect of a firewise community plan. Blaming the "meth head" for the lack of good firewise practices, is like saying you understand ANY disability, 46mph wind gusts, and flying ember fire science in a red flag warning. You freaking don't count the druggies here. You count fire hydrants in Google Maps. I see zero in three subdivisions. <folds arms>. I guess that's enough for me to NOT BLAME a METH HEAD. I blame lack of firewise community planning.
Thanks again for the facts and the real story behind what this administration is doing and hiding from us! It was horrifying watching the Spokane fires and the immediate devastation. In AZ where I work and live (the metro area, and in Tempe) we have had to deal with extreme heat (been over 110 for 10 days at a time, hitting 116 on Sunday) and then some flooding when it does finally rain here and the ground is so hard. This summer the fires have been everywhere in the west and little rain. The Feds just stated that AZ, California and Nevada will take all the cuts of water from the Colorado River. It is a very scary time in the west!
Great example of why these grifters work so hard to get elected. The back door corruption and money to be made is nearly endless especially now with no oversight (looking at you Congress).
Good luck with Burgum doing anything he doesn't profit from, and Rollins doing anything that isn't promoted by the Heritage Foundation/Project 2025! Vote them all out ASAP!
Hey Wes,
You take my thoughts to the next level; thank you for this piece.
I see where this is going, at least if we let the current administration have its way. They will declare a 'War on Forests!' to justify wholesale logging of every tree (at least the profitable old growth ones) to protect us from the wooden menace.
They're desperately trying to fix a problem they caused by overplanting and creating a monoculture that beetles are all too eager to belly up to the buffet and take advantage of. Also, the lawn-like symmetry of same-age trees might make the OC among them feel good; it creates a perfect storm of matching crown heights to enable fires to spread at incredible speeds when the weather and winds align like they did this week.
Hear me out: I agree with you that it's impossible to implement a 100% suppression effort, for many reasons that include that a good burn in a natural forest makes a healthy forest. But when it comes to the human/property interface, like Spokane, we need to get our heads out of our collective asses.
The proposed DoD budget is now north of $1T per annum. Imagine if we redirected, say, 15% of that; $150 BILLION dollars to go all-in on fire defense. I'm not talking about overwhelming fires out in the wilderness; I'm talking about taking those defense-minded folks, research, and development, and using it to develop weapons to fight the fires that immediately threaten properties and lives; a fire like Spokane, like the Palisades, like Maui.
Imagine those Defense dollars developing squadrons of fire-fighting drones; not dozens, but thousands. Deploy them all over the fire-prone West. No more "We had to deploy our best resources to other areas" bullshit. Serious, DoD-caliber drones; not the plane-type ones we see fighting wars, but the quad-copter ones that are highly maneuverable and bulked up to carry tons of water. Now imagine 300 of them swooping down into the Spokane River and very tactically spreading out and heading toward the hotspots in the mazes of suburbia and dousing those most-threatening fires; fires that ground-based teams can't reach, and aircraft can't navigate to in the dense smoke. Hell, even use AI to help pilot them if that helps. No human pilots at risk, no minimum visibility issues, and the ability to get right down into the thick of the battle.
That's the commitment we need. Retreat from the foreign fronts of forever wars and bring the fight to the front lines here at home.
BTW, have you read Chad Hanson's Smokescreen? Highly recommend. Some folks might criticize him for doing some of his own research cherry-picking, but he has still has a lot of great discussions and on-the-ground research that he's done.
Keep it up, Wes. Thank you.
Great article -- this is the article that needed to be written about wildfires in the current era.
Dovetailing with the Edison finding in the Altadena fire, Newsom is now working behind closed doors with the big private utilities to pass yet more legislation limiting their liability for fires they cause by, among other things, eliminating the right for insurance companies to recover wildfire related costs from the utilities or other corporations for fires they cause, pushing the burden onto the public via even higher insurance rates. This follows previous legislation in recent years that allows utilities to shift increasingly more wildfire costs to consumers, despite their year-over-year record high profits.
https://consumerwatchdog.org/energy/utilities-break-california-lobbying-record-under-newsom-while-former-aides-lead-utility-backed-wildfire-coalition/
https://calmatters.org/economy/2026/07/wildfire-liability-battle/
While as Wes points out, there is much more to the picture, one of the last things we should be doing to reduce wildfires is reducing or eliminating liability of those who sometimes cause them through negligence, cost cutting, or poor management.
In his run-up to a presidential candidacy in 2028, Newsom has become very follow-the-money and has reversed course on so many environmental issues that I've lost count, including trying to railroad through the delta tunnels by using budget legislation that would have also included highly fascist moves like exempting the project from environmental review, eliminating the public from the process and eliminating the public's ability to bring lawsuits.
Policy changes and laws that eliminate or reduce public participation, and eliminate or reduce the ability to bring lawsuits are becoming favorite tools in the attack on democracy.
Climate change is caused in significant degree by the dehydration of soil. Which also causes forests and grasslands to burn. Thinking that C02 is the sole cause is folly. The water cycles have been altered by long term deforestation and draining wetlands, and compaction of soils. We are in the accelerating cycle of flood with erosion and failure of land absorbing water, followed by drought and then fire. Please study the ways that destruction of the biome and water cycle heat the earth. Thanks