Is Escondido Burning?


A deer caught in the California forest fires, via the BBC.

Some 574,474 acres and an estimated 2,300 houses burned in the recent wildfires that scorched Southern California and displaced more than half a million people. The flames claimed at least 12 lives and injured 75. But as wreckage is cleared away, those figures could rise.

Earlier this summer, I spent a post or two reacting to news about the fires that ignited about half of Greece. In the little news coverage I could watch about the California catastrophe, I heard some mumbling about climate change and global warming and such, but not a syllable about the Greek version. Although in the U.S., as in Greece, there's reason to believe some of the fires were set for pyromaniacal kicks.

The dreaded Santa Ana winds whipped these things into firestorms. This has happened before, it is sure to happen again, and I'm wondering if this'll affect development patterns in that part of the country.