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Comment by gregwebs | Hacker News Reader

After reading this article I take away the opposite conclusion: with controlled burning these communities could dramatically reduce their risk. What would be helpful is a law requiring controlled burning for human habitation.

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Controlled burning would prevent neighboring fires from encroaching but they don’t stop the community itself from becoming a tinderbox, which it will since it’s basically a forest with houses in it. I don’t even know if it’s possible to do a controlled burn in a reasonably densely populated area.

I live in the mountains of Colorado and most homeowners do their part to remove fuels around their home. One major reason is insurers will require it.

It's unmanaged public land that tends to be most dense and fuel rich.

In the interior of British Columbia we had massive forest die-off from Pine Beetle, that was caused by a lack of fires combined with warmer than normal winters. All of that fuel came down to the forest floor where it was a huge fire risk and was cleaned up manually. Now we have some newer growth but way more open grassland. Fires here move a lot faster but don't tend to be as dangerous and controlled burns are much easier. Trees that survive are younger and much thinner coverage, way more deer and cougars and less bears; a lot more birds. It's been pretty unique to watch an entire ecosystem change in 10-20 years; much less than a lifetime. Plus it turns out that historically these areas were predominately grassland not forests!

In the 2018 Camp Fire, the towns burned worse than the "unmanaged" public forests.

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