Absolutely. I've got somewhere an edition of Tacitus' Germania with commentary that states as a matter of fact, no explanation needed that "the forest is not part of the human sphere". Why is this so controversial that it needs to be downvoted?
It is baffling that anyone would want to live on the wrong side of the urban-wilderness interface, especially if wilderness means wildfire risk.
I've lived in the forest for the last ten years. Nothing better. Sure there's risks; there's risks everywhere.
People have been shown to be willing to rebuild repeatedly in fire zones, with massive economic and public safety impact. Makes sense to legislate to prevent this.
Some do, some don't. California isn't the whole world.
Edit:
> Wildfires are among the most common forms of natural disaster in some regions, including Siberia, California, and Australia.[17][18][19] Areas with Mediterranean climates or in the taiga biome are particularly susceptible.
California and Australia are outliers. Writing off forests in general just because particular sorts of forests are prone to burning doesn't make sense.
My house in a Michigan forest has a very, very different risk profile from a home in a California forest. And California is a big state, I'm sure there are forests that have similarly low risk profiles.
Well, there used to be. For example the coastal quasi-rainforest in Big Basin near Santa Cruz.
But climate change appears to have pushed places like that into the burn zone. Nowadays even Olympic National Park, an area full of temperate rainforest, is experiencing wildfire.
it seems like pretty much any forest area of California is at wildfire risk these days.
It's funny. In a recent discussion I was arguing against someone wanting to increase power costs on rural customers, because I think doing so carelessly would impact the food supply chain. But it doesn't take too much "living in forests is great" foolish selfishness in the middle of a discussion of wildfires to make me wonder if I was on the wrong side of that one.