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Comment by raldi | Hacker News Reader

The primary reason we have a fire season at all is that we don't let people build housing in California's existing cities and towns, and so instead they sprawl out into fire-prone areas requiring long-distance power lines.

https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/news/release/wui-interface-intermi...

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We need to stop subsidizing people who choose to live in the wildlands urban interface. It's a hazard to the rest of us.

Fire is a part of the lifecycle of many of the plants native to California. If power lines didn't spark fires, something else would (lightning if nothing else).

That said, power lines do have a tendency to spark fires in remote areas on the windiest days, which is not ideal. But eliminating power lines still wouldn't eliminate brush fires.

But once you start letting people build houses in fire country, they pressure the local and state government to suppress those natural fires, and thus, instead of frequent manageable ones, we get less-frequent infernos.

Also because people don't want to live next door to power plants (with "next door" meaning "within eyesight").

Actually I think the real reason is that PG&E has ≈100 year old power lines with components that are well past their service life and regularly arc/fail causing fires. But there doesn't appear to be any accountability for their lack of maintenance.

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/new-images-of-pge-...

A lot of places have long-distance power lines. They don't all burn up on a regular basis. So, no, that can't be it.

(That being said, yes, it would be better if power generation were decentralized, and California seems like the right place to do just that.)

Did you read the link? It’s specifically when the power lines run through fire-prone land, and also when the trees/brush interact with houses. The plants spread flames rapidly, and the buildings act as torches, keeping the fire going long after nature would’ve burned up.

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