EDITORIAL: Update wildfire warnings for Californians’ safety
The damages to forests and grasslands are huge, with the two combined fires known as
The damage to homes and other buildings and their contents creates enormous economic -- and emotional -- hardship for Californians, but most things are ultimately replaceable, and there is the balm of insurance. As exurbs and suburbs have moved increasingly into parts of our state, whether in the hills or in the flats, that were pure open country until recent decades, material loss will be more a fact of life going forward, barring some unexpected ban on building where it is increasingly unsafe to do so.
For the loss of human lives, there is no such real balm. There are 14,000 firefighters out there right now trying to save our things and ourselves, and putting their own lives on the line. In great part, and with great valor, they have mostly been successful. But these new fires, hotter than ever thanks to the ongoing drought and global warming, are creating their own weather, howling winds that allow them to jump across wide rivers such as the
Up in Redding, that's one reason an older woman and her two great-grandchildren were killed, unaware that the Carr fire posed an immediate danger to their neighborhood.
Could they have been saved if the state's emergency-alert system were more high-tech and effective? Many people who have had to quickly evacuate their homes this year and last say they were never warned.
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