Myths on the California Fires

I have had a little time to see what the rest of the world has been saying about our fires. God, what nonsense.

Al Qaeda Terrorists Set the Fires
Originally sourced to Fox News so you know it is crap. Firefighters have a funny quirk, they like to put out fires before worrying about the cause. While there were arsonists around, the ones arrested have been homegrown Californians, most of the fires seem to have mundane origins - downed powerlines, a house fire that got away, that sort of thing.

Environmentalists Caused the Fires by Stopping Logging or, Global Warming Caused the Fires
Of the half-million acres burned this past week there wasn't enough prime timber to interest a single logger. We could have clear-cut every forest from Bakersfield to the Mexican Border and it would not have mattered. These were brush fire. Southern California is chaparral country and chaparral was born to burn. Annual grasses and shrubs are tinder dry by October. Fire is such a natural part of the landscape of Southern California there are plants (most famously the Fire Poppy) that require fire to germinate. When Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovered Southern California in the autumn of 1542, there was a hot dry wind and plumes of smoke rising from the hills. He had arrived during a Santa Ana firestorm. True, the ongoing drought in California is probably a result of global warming and drought makes fire conditions worse, but that is a minor consideration to an annual event.

FEMA learned the lessons of Katrina
FEMA didn't even show up until Thursday and their only activity was to hold a press conference where there were no actual reporters admitted and all the questions were asked by FEMA staffers. It is accurate to say that FEMA didn't screw up; they didn't do anything at all.

State and Local Governments Learned from Katrina
Ah, no. They learned from the 2003 Cedar Fire. In 2003 emergency personnel were sent into danger zones going door-to-door telling people to flee. Trying to use the broadcast media to send messages failed. The orders to evacuate Harbison Canyon were not broadcast until after the fire was racing through the canyon. Most of the people who died in 2003 were caught by the fire as they were trying to evacuate. This time, a "reverse 911" system where authorities called homes in danger allowed for neighborhoods to evacuate in an orderly fashion well before the fire arrived.

Well, at least Qualcomm Stadium Wasn't like the Superdome
Qualcomm was an orderly evacuation site, the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina was a disaster. This is true. Qualcomm was well away from the fire zones; the Superdome was right under the worst of the hurricane. The difference was not because Californians are better than Louisianans but because fires are different than hurricanes.