Blaming individuals when all the elements for a fire are already common place seems like we’re trying to blame someone when there is actually a systemic issue
Among the largest fires in California history, four that I'm aware of were attributed to:
- Mowing a field. This was in fact illegal of itself, due to the fire hazard, but the fire (near Redding, CA) was literally started by sparking steel off rocks.
- Power lines. Numerous instances, though the Camp Fire which devastated the town of Paradise, CA, is particularly notable.
- Lighting. Most notably the August 2020 California lightning wildfires, resulting from over 11,000 recorded lightning strikes, sparking 21 named fires, many of which were themselves mergers of numerous other fires. A total of 23 souls were lost and 3,586+ structures destroyed.
Yes, human activity (or infrastructure) does start fires, and there are times that the actions are negligent or even deliberate. But the landscape is absolutely primed to ignite, and the least spark (or massive lightning bolts) can set it off.
In Montana you are financially responsible for all losses incurred due to a fire you start. Of course nobody is required to prove billions in insurance coverage before lighting up their yarn brush pile...
Fires larger than 48" diameter are generally banned in the dry season here, although that's plenty big enough to set a forest on fire. Sometimes local and federal agencies (depending on jurisdiction) ban all open fires for a while during very dry/windy conditions, and when there's already a big fire to avoid their resource becoming stretched.
The blame is for starting the fire, not everything has 3 safety belts in the world, some things just have consequences.. leading to other consequences. There is just no defense or excuse for being carless and doing super stupid things here, no. Not knowing that.. not sure.
Large fires can be started by quite hard to prevent things. We had a fire a couple of years ago that burned a bunch of houses that was started by a lightning strike on a single tree a week or more beforehand. The fire smoldered unnoticed near a popular hiking trail, inside the trunk then emerged much later when wind speed became high.
Zoning, maintenance and education to name some. Around me (dry, forested part of Spain) there are almost no fires, and I think part of that is because everyone here is taught how to handle something that could ignite it during those crucial months, usually when it happens it’s because people from outside the area have no real idea of the consequences BBQ’ing during this time of year
