From Steve Crooks…
There's a guy at work here who says he has little sympathy for all the people losing their homes and businesses from the fires because they knew they were building/buying in areas that were known to have a higher chance of being burned someday. He compared it to people who knowingly build in a flood zone. Just to put on the icing, he also claims that since these people are losing their "2nd or 3rd multimillion dollar homes" he really doesn't shed any tears.
He even sent me this link from which he pulled out quotes showing that people had narrowly escaped previous fires (and not learned their lesson in his view), and figures showing how homes are being built on "wildfire land."
For the record, I'm not standing with him on his position. But I'm curious how you'd respond to him. I don't really have time to dig around and find sources to show him why he might be wrong, but I thought since you are much closer to the situation you might have a more accessible response at hand.
I don't think you have to know those areas or people who live there, as I do, nor do you need detailed stats to prove he's got this wrong. You just have to look at the staggering number of people who've been evacuated and whose homes are gone or threatened. If the totals were 5% of what they are, he might be right. There are folks who buy and build in areas where this kind of thing is a little more possible than it is in other areas. I don't agree that they are undeserving of sympathy and assistance but even if they are, they're a tiny fraction of all those who are impacted. Over half a million people have been evacuated just in San Diego County. These people were not all living in places where they shouldn't, and I'd be surprised if more than a few hundred were losing their second, let alone their third homes.
There are also other dangers in life. Often, to live in an area where there's a low probability of fire means to live where there's a higher chance of flash flooding or quakes or other disasters. After the big Northridge earthquake, one writer I knew who lived out in Valley decided to move to Virginia…where he got hit by a hurricane. There probably is a place in this country where where there's little chance of disaster but we can't all live on that block, wherever it is.
I was amazed to read the article he sent you. He really had to scour to find some scant indicators in it that the people losing their homes are living in fire-prone areas or that they have multiple residences. It made me wonder why anyone would try so hard to feel some reason not to have any compassion or caring about so many people whose lives have been devastated…and then I remembered something that a friend of mine once said. "Some people," he remarked, "are just assholes."