# How much ought rebuilding be subsidized/encouraged following natural disasters? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 13, 2025, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916 "2025-01-13T14:59:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/41 "2025-01-14T00:10:32Z")
In fact, there was a small fire in Pacific Palisades a week or so before the one going on now. It was quickly put out before it spread. There is some speculation that it wasn’t fully out and there was a slow burn before the winds spread it. I am not sure how plausible that is. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/42 "2025-01-14T00:24:41Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > the same thing could have happened in Brooklyn. You are correct. If only they had the same prevailing winds, topography, rainfall, etc., the EXACT same thing could have happened. Dodged a close one there! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/43 "2025-01-14T01:08:33Z")
Not understanding what you are calling ignorance. This fire is of course causing more damage to humans and the human built environment than others but the specific massively elevated risk in California is well known, a consequence of inadequate and misguided past forest management, the impact of changing climate on it, and huge areas of [“wildland urban interface”](https://www.dryad.net/post/understanding-the-wildland-urban-interface) (WUI) > [@](#): > > California, known for its diverse landscapes, has one of the largest WUI regions in the United States. A[2022 study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-09707-7) using remote sensing data found that 6.74% of California’s total land area can be considered to be part of the wildland-urban interface, which is roughly 423,971 square kilometers. > > The study also revealed that about five million housing units, or 45.13% of California’s total housing, are located within the WUI. The distribution of the WUI is mostly concentrated along the western coastline and west of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range … > > … The expansion of the WUI has significant implications for wildfire risks and management. Firstly, it increases the likelihood of human-caused fires, as more human activities occur near or within wildland areas. Secondly, it complicates firefighting efforts, as protecting homes and communities in these areas can be challenging. Lastly, the presence of homes and infrastructure in the WUI means that even a small fire can have devastating consequences. This isn’t the first major WUI fire in LA county. > **[LA-County-CaseStudy-accessible.pdf](https://planning-org-uploaded-media.s3.amazonaws.com/publication/download_pdf/LA-County-CaseStudy-accessible.pdf)** > > 4.27 MB The WUI is a very risky area for fires and that risk is increasing progressively with climate change. Yes it is a similar conversation as for barrier islands. How many times do you rebuild in an area that is almost certainly going to destroyed again and likely in the not distant future? And if a real estate investment decreases in value, due to climate change or any other reason, should the rest of us bail out the owners? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/44 "2025-01-14T01:50:19Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The WUI is a very risky area for fires and that risk is increasing progressively with climate change. Yes it is a similar conversation as for barrier islands. How many times do you rebuild in an area that is almost certainly going to destroyed again and likely in the not distant future? Exactly right. The problem is the conflation of suburban areas at risk only with dry weather and extremely high winds vs hillside areas at risk under usual conditions. That is, it’s reasonable to rebuild dense suburban city blocks, but not so much the houses on winding roads in the hills. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/45 "2025-01-14T02:19:26Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Where did the Altadena fire start? An electrical tower in hills covered with brush. They think. > [@hajario](#): > > There is some speculation that it wasn’t fully out and there was a slow burn before the winds spread it. The current theory is that this fire was started in a backyard BBQ. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/46 "2025-01-14T14:34:16Z")
Agree. Most of Altadena appears to be suburban grid built on flat land, not at the WUI in or near the hills. The Coffey Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa is out in a valley, across a major freeway from the hills, but got heavily impacted by a wildland fire under unusual conditions. There’s a difference between where the risk is _known_ to be high and where the risk is _not known_ to be high. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/47 "2025-01-14T15:02:40Z")
Much of Altadena in in the hills and adjacent to the brush. Winds sending embers into the rest of the more urbanized area down hill is an expected risk. [Here](https://altadenaheritage.org/protecting-altadena-from-wildfire/) is from an Altadena heritage site before the fire: > Imagine a fire coinciding with one of the occasional mighty winds that roar down the mountain, burning embers can fly a mile or more and ignite multiple fires. When a fire gets out of control in a gale it is impossible to stop until the wind drops It IS and has been rated a high fire hazard area. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/48 "2025-01-14T15:22:09Z")
[Here is the Eaton fire map](https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/eaton-fire), and [here is the fire damage map.](https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2025/01/12/map-la-county-database-shows-status-of-buildings-in-eaton-fire/) As noted upthread, [the fire is believed to have begun near electrical towers in the hills of Eaton Canyon](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-12/la-me-eaton-fire-power-lines). For anyone to maintain that this fire simply involved a flatland suburban grid without acknowledging any relation to immediately adjacent hilly “wild” areas requires an impressive ignoring of obvious facts. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/49 "2025-01-14T15:45:06Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > For anyone to maintain that this fire simply involved a flatland suburban grid without acknowledging any relation to immediately adjacent hilly “wild” areas requires an impressive ignoring of obvious facts. It’s a good thing no one is doing that. _All_ of southern California has high fire risks because of our extended dry season. Areas near undeveloped land have higher risks because that land has poor connectivity. Structures actually in the poorly developed land have the highest risks. Californians, and the rest of the U.S., need to discuss risks, but it needs to be informed about the differences among the risks. The reason there’s pushback is that those differences seem to be minimized in much of the discussion in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916/50 "2025-01-14T17:51:11Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Areas near undeveloped land have higher risks because that land has poor connectivity. Structures actually in the poorly developed land have the highest risks. But by definition there are few of them. A single house in the midst of a major wildfire will almost certainly be destroyed. Some fraction of homes in a more densely developed WUI will survive. But obviously the densely developed area will experience more structures destroyed. And the greater human activity there, more power lines, so on, is more probability of a fire starting. Again 45% of Californian housing is in the high risk WUI. High winds and dry conditions are to be expected, even if this is unseasonably bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ought-rebuilding-be-subsidized-encouraged-following-natural-disasters/1012916.md?page=2)