Wildfire Devastates California Town of Paradise (apnews.com)

A number of readers have shared this report: Tens of thousands of people fled a fast-moving wildfire Thursday in Northern California, some clutching babies and pets as they abandoned vehicles and struck out on foot ahead of the flames that forced the evacuation of an entire town and destroyed hundreds of structures. "Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," said Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean late Thursday. "The wind that was predicted came and just wiped it out."

McLean estimated that a couple of thousand structures were destroyed in the town of 27,000 residents about 180 miles (290 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, where residents scrambled to flee. The extent of the injuries and specific damage count was not immediately known as officials could not access the dangerous area.

Comments

That's why I said "and the like"

[rsilvergun]

this is the problem with America today. When a tragedy takes some effort to avoid we just throw up our hands and say "Welp, nothing we can do about it".

It's like Gun Control. The stuff the left is suggesting ("assault weapon" bans and banning high capacity mags) won't work. There was just a case of a 61 year old guy with dementia who got shot by cops coming to take his guns (literally pried from his cold, dead hands). But then we've got the right wing saying it's OK for a guy with a long history of beating his wife to be armed to the teeth. It's a really, really hard problem to solve. But we mostly just give up, and when we do do something there's so much fighting over it that we do the wrong thing.

We as a country need to agree that problems can be solved and tragedy can be averted. That old man didn't have to die, and neither did the latest round of 12 shot at a bar. That town didn't have to burn down, and New Orleans didn't have to drown. We put a man on the moon, we can keep one old man from being shot by cops and we can keep towns and cities from being wrecked.

Re:Divine Wrath!

[LynnwoodRooster]

Acres burned were dropping until the 1990s (when climate change was, you know, happening). Then harvesting of timber in California dropped dramatically in the mid 1990s, and we see an uptick in fire coverage - mainly driven by California.

Coincidence or causation? Well, given that California has a record amount of dead trees out there, it's not a big leap to say that reduced harvesting is a problem. And given that lots of people in CA believe logging dead trees is bad, we shouldn't be surprised at the fuel - and subsequent fire - increase happens.

THAT is how you cite your argument. Simple, see?