That's not really how it works, but go on with not catching the obvious musical reference.
C'mon RJ.
My hometown had 50% more people and would never consider ourselves a "city". Our rivals in Upper Darby and Lower Merion are even bigger and are never considered to be "cities".
How far in can a fire go in a pure suburban neighborhood without many trees? Are the fires usually just going to get the one row of houses closest to the wooded/brush areas and then not make it much further, or can the fire just go from house to house and keep going forever?
Shouldn't they be doing controlled burns though, which they don't do in California? Controlled burns would remove undergrowth (fuel for the fire) and limit the size of any wild fires that do catch. He may not be that far off base, as annoying it is to admit...
The main problem, frankly, is that many more people live in California than the natural environment can support. If they were all housed in relatively compact areas it would be one thing as far as fire protection goes, but instead they've taken the American concept of sprawl and pushed it to the limit. They build houses on every piece of ground they feasibly can and keep expanding into more and more marginal areas. Take that and combine with historic droughts exacerbated by climate change, and you have millions of houses and people living in areas that go up in flames in moments. Sprawl and bad development practices are not in any way a uniquely Californian issue, but sprawl in the middle of fire country is. it just has never come together so drastically until the past few years.
There are also issues surrounding habitat protection of endangered species. If you start going in and clearing out all the undergrowth, you remove habitat for many animals, some who are endangered or threatened.
There fires happened so quickly that would have been impossible. The entire town of Paradise was destroyed within a very short time. In fact, the residents only had a five minute notice.
The SoCal part of the fires had the ultimate control path - the 101 freeway. The fires simply jumped the freeway.
Also, the fires started several hundred miles apart. You'd basically need a standing army of firefighters. Add to that in SoCal, there were huge, dry winds.
With all the experience and funding CA has had over the decades, Trump's statements are totally full of shit
The main problem, frankly, is that many more people live in California than the natural environment can support. If they were all housed in relatively compact areas it would be one thing as far as fire protection goes, but instead they've taken the American concept of sprawl and pushed it to the limit. They build houses on every piece of ground they feasibly can and keep expanding into more and more marginal areas. Take that and combine with historic droughts exacerbated by climate change, and you have millions of houses and people living in areas that go up in flames in moments. Sprawl and bad development practices are not in any way a uniquely Californian issue, but sprawl in the middle of fire country is. it just has never come together so drastically until the past few years.