"I have lived in big cities,
but I think in cities you're cut off
from the wild springs of nature…
I don't know what it is, it's just something inside me I gained from being near wilderness."
-Chamber of Commerce employee and Bozeman resident Robert Ren Harrison (He's taking a picture of me as I interview him :))
“So, who’s to blame? The govt. or environmentalists?” — MoeThe relagutory strait jacket imposed on both individual homeowners and government agencies has made it nearly impossible to address the fire threat. As this article from 2007 explains:An example of the legal strait jacket that homeowners faced in the areas hit by the fires is the “brush management guide” on the City of San Diego web site. The confusing instructions state that vegetation within 100 feet of homes in canyon areas “must be thinned and pruned regularly.” But then, the same sentence goes on to state that this must be achieved “without harming native plants, soil or habitats.”Then in fine print at the bottom of the page, the real kicker comes in: “Brush management is not allowed in coastal sage scrub during the California gnatcatcher nesting season, from March 1st through August 15th. This small bird only lives in coastal sage scrub and is listed as a threatened species by the federal government. Any harm to this bird could result in fines and penalties.” Coastal sage scrub is a low plant ubiquitous near coastal California that grows like a weed under almost any condition. And since gnatcatcher nesting season lasts almost six months, there could be much buildup of sage scrub that becomes hard for homeowners to control. Especially since the maintenance rules severely restrict the use of mechanical brush-clearing devices even when gnat nesting season is over. The tragedy is that this shows that not much has changed even after previous warnings from experts that environmental rules were on a collision course with fire safety in California and many other places, because they prevented the removal of “excess fuel” for fires from dense stands of trees and vegetation. Southern California homes were lost in 1993 after the federal Fish and Wildlife Service told homeowners that mechanical clearing of brush would likely violate the Endangered Species Act. The reason: it could alter the habitat of a newly-listed endangered species called the Stephens kangaroo rat. — Got that? No machines unless you want to end up with massive fines and/or jail time. According to leftie logic, altering the Stephens kangaroo rats environment by means of catastrophic fire is more acceptable.And as Hugh Hewitt points out:”The land that has passed into ‘conserved’ status is at even greater risk of fire than private land that is home to a protected species because absolutely no one cares for its fire management policy. The scrum of planners, consultants and G-11s that put together these plans should be monitoring these areas closely. Instead, they regulate and move on to savage the property rights of the next region.”