(Almost) All California National Forests closed

I don’t know how I feel about it.

I could definitely see an argument that the area under immediate risk is so great the its better just to keep everyone out. You have the chance of someone starting another fire plus the chance of a real horror show if a bunch of campers were suddenly stranded.

On the other hand… What is the limiting principle here? Will this go on until we fix global warming?

I don’t think anyone of any political persuasion wants to live in a totally safe world. We accept some risks because a perfectly safe life would be miserable. If “as safe as possible” was the goal we’d be banning swimming pools, sports, non-essential driving, alcohol consumption, boating and practically everything else that is fun.

In a different note I have a pet peeve. I keep hearing that fire departments are overworked, uh yeah duh. If we’re going to spend a trillion or a couple trillion on infrastructure maybe we should put a LOT more into fire fighting. I don’t care if we are carbon neutral by 2030, those fires won’t get smaller for a long time. I think a neighborhood NOT burning down is more important than fixing a few pot holes.