There is no reason for many people to die in wildfires

The Paradise Fire (Camp Fire by name, Paradise being the town) was and is a tragic exception, but let's note that — it was tragic, and it was and is an exception to what I mention in the header.

I decided to pull information I had written about the earliest reported deaths from the Palisades and Eaton fires from the roasting I had given Joshua Frank of Counterpunch to reference them separately.

On the 11 deaths recorded through Saturday afternoon? And on why they died? I'll take them in order of presentation in the story.

First, pets are not people. I know that, Robert Putnam "bowling alone" cliches aside, for more and more people living alone, they've become quasi-people. But? They're not people. And, while not talking about LA wildfires, but rather, the ice storm in his Atlanta area, Ed Buckner agrees that pets aren't people.

Second, if an amputee father told his out-of-state daughter he was going to evacuate, wouldn't that have originally included his cerebral palsy son living with him, so what changed his mind? Something happened. But, it didn't need to. He should have evacuated with his son.

Third, it wasn't in god's hands, because, per Muhammad, there is no god and I am his prophet, and unlike nutters in Tex-ass with tornadoes, nobody prayed away the fire. To be really blunt, and switch from theology to secularism? People who have a fatalistic version of "god's will" and get their asses killed in natural disasters are Darwin Award candidates. 

Fourth, in the reverse of social media rumors, don't try to fight fires like this if you're not a firefighter. Sixth is No. 4 in spades — definitely don't try to be a professional firefighter if you have cerebral palsy. Seventh, don't try to be a professional firefighter.

Fifth, why was the person talking to his family on his cellphone not self-evacuated long before? (Story doesn't explain why he stayed.)  

Someone who did not die, but was it worth the risk? It is craptacular for 90-year-olds to have their insurance cancelled, but is it worth it for a 60-ish child to risk dying, especially since you don't know that you can keep their house from burning or not? And, on this whole issue, I'm not meaning to excuse property insurers, but, per Abrahm Lustgarten, maybe insurance against both fire and hurricane needs to be less state-socialized; Lustgarten specifically noted in his book that making people feel enough pain on this aspect of climate change might actually spur action. The story linked at the top of the piece notes that Cal state regulators have allowed a bunch of insurance hikes; socialist Florida and Tex-ass refuse to do that with hurricanes. The piece also notes that the state's former insurance commissioner forced all state-operating property insurers to look at their investments in fossil fuels; unfortunately, no divestments were required.

Side note: SCOTUS is allowing state-based climate change lawsuits to proceed. Team Biden wanted this, but Team Biden has also refused to file amicus briefs let alone its own lawsuits.

Four and seven remind me of Florida hurricane nutters. This paragraph may sound callous, but, as with Florida hurricane nutters, none of these people had to die. They didn't, period and end of story.

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The Beeb has a Jan. 13 update. In addition to the above, you have a person saying "the fire would pass over" (equivalent of act of god and/or hurricane nutters), a "fires didn't get here before" (hurricane nutters), and at least one other amateur firefighter.

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What are best practices to prevent wildfire spread? Stephen Eisenman offers some at Counterpunch, while claiming others, such as prescribed burns, will make things worse. OK, that's good reason to have fewer rebuilds. As for "house-hardening"? That's going to push California housing costs even higher. As for, per Naked Capitalism, the slow pace of rebuilding in the Santa Monica Mountains after a 2020 fire being a harbinger for LA? Maybe most that rebuilding shouldn't happen. Move to Cleveland or St. Louis, where the water is and the wildfires are not. Counterpunch's Jeff St. Clair linked to that, and is drawing the same wrong conclusions as Joshua Frank.