Friday, November 1, 2019

Chuck DeVore: California wildfires are 'one of the most preventable tragedies in human history'



Fox News  "The wildfires ravaging California are "one of the most preventable tragedies in human history," according to a former California state assemblyman.
"We’ve seen this coming for a long time. We have half the people working in California today that used to work in the logging industry because environmentalists and their political enablers have shut down the timber industry in California and when you don’t log the timber, eventually, it’s gotta burn,” Chuck DeVore said on “Fox & Friends” after pointing out that Gov. Gavin Newsom has blamed "capitalism, global warming," and the Pacific Gas & Electric company.
"DeVore's comments came after Newsom declared a statewide emergency Sunday after multiple wildfires prompted the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people from their homes. Mandatory evacuations were ordered Wednesday morning in Southern California as a rapidly moving wildfire ignited and burned in Simi Valley, near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
"The Getty Fire in Los Angeles, which has destroyed a dozen homes and forced many people – including some celebrities – to escape the area, was sparked by a tree branch that fell on top of power lines and ignited nearby brush, officials said Tuesday." . . .

This has been called the most preventable fire: How Regulations Made California's Fires Worse  Written back in 2018:
. . . "During a congressional hearing in May, California congressman Tom McClintock blasted environmentalists for having fervently opposed such measures since the early 1970s.  Instead, they have been advocating that forests be left to their own devices – despite the fact that thousands of years of history shows that forests need to be appropriately maintained in order to reap all their benefits and reduce the risk of fires.  This understanding of the environment has too often been trumped by politics in California.
"When a 2013 environmental impact report advocated the benefits of large-scale vegetation management in San Diego County, activists violently rejected its conclusions.  As in the decades before, concerns over wildlife and environmental impacts were ultimately more important than the safety of fellow citizens, with the result that brush and dead vegetation were allowed to accumulate unimpeded for more than forty years.
"Ironically, 2013 also saw a range of massive wildfires across California that were exacerbated by the U.S. Forest Service failing to follow through on crucial tree-thinning projects.  The same happened immediately before the recent devastating fires, with the U.S. Forest Service once again neglecting to clear brush in the woods around Los Angeles as originally planned.
"Worse still, government agencies have actively stymied rescue efforts.  In this case, it was CAL FIRE withholding a license for a Boeing 747 Global SuperTanker firefighting plane, capable of dropping almost 20,000 gallons of fire retardant on the inferno below." . . .


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