||| FROM SPOKESMAN REVIEW |||
“As of today, the overwhelming majority of Washington is experiencing drought, and our state is bracing for another devastating wildfire season.”
OrIginally reported by SPOKESMAN REVIEW, by Jay Inslee
“Families who have spent their lives building homes and businesses now face the terrifying reality that, after the next fire, they could lose everything, with no way to rebuild.”
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Perhaps people SHOULDN’T be able to get an affordable mortgage or insurance if they build in the middle of a forest that has evolved with and actually requires, periodic fires? Those second/third/fourth growth forests are absolutely going to burn at some point. There is no point in elaborate insurance schemes that will only allow the problem to worsen. Let the insurance market limit building in foolish places like flood plains and highly flammable forests.
Forest fires do generate a lot of CO2 and nasty particulates but they are episodic, not continual, unlike most human generated pollution. The simple fact is we can’t, (and probably shouldn’t) stop forest fires from happening. But we can make it less easy to build in places that are clearly dangerous. Wildland firefighters should not be asked to risk their lives trying to save structures that shouldn’t have been built there in the first place.
I believe Jay Inslee’s intentions are good but this is not the way to do it.