Corrente pays some attention to the background of the California forest fires:
Prolonging and hence exacerbating the fire cycle has, of course, been human development with the attendant short-sighted policy of “total fire suppression.” Moreover, under this policy, each wave of extreme fires has had the effect of worsening the prospect of the next one by damaging the overall ecology. Extreme fires actually transform the chemical composition of the soil, exacerbating erosion and flooding, while the successive waves of destruction favor speculative development in favor of the well-heeled, who have the political pull to neutralize zoning codes that might, for example, prohibit shake cedar construction, while socializing the costs of their pyrophilic habits onto others. The results are graphically on display here.