Read on Twitter
1. This year, there will be no way to make even a dent in the fires with our tools. There is no small chance that vast swaths of major cities there will burn. I know, because I've fought wildfires, and everyone on my crew agrees: this month is the beginning of the end.
2. I don't understand the lack of reporting on the decades of Cal Fire failures leading to this moment. The explanation for this goes far beyond prison labor shortages. It's about the interests of the logging industry, energy sector, and political corruption over decades.
3. Policy failures have led to what could now be the destruction of an entire state. Pieces of this reporting always seem detached from one another. Rarely are they combined to give a full accounting of what led to the inferno poised to consume California.
4. It really is madness inducing. Can anyone point me in the direction of long form pieces that detail all this?
5. Let me add this: fighting wild fires means digging scratch lines with shovels and dozers and praying the weather changes. The effective tools we have to combat these fires are entirely preemptive, not reactive. Once it reaches this stage it's really out of human control.
7.) Mike Davis write about how failure to address wildfire land management regulations + Cal housing speculation is the same as 1995-2008 wall street deregulation paired with CDO trading challenge. Bet big until the crash...
8.) Also some people have raised concerns about my language being hyperbolic. That might be fair so let me amend "destruction of an entire state" with "destruction of an entire state's life support infrastructure"
9. Update from Dave: “send cigarettes”
10.) See #7 above https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2020/08/24/580129.htm
