…Insurance is based on risk, and your risk is reduced when the cost of defending the homes is paid for by somebody else," says Ray Rasker, executive director of the Montana-based think tank Headwaters Economics.
Rasker means taxpayers. Last year alone, the U.S. Forest Service budgeted roughly $1 billion for wildfires. The bulk of that money went to battle blazes that threatened homes and cities.
"It’s not until we start shifting that cost responsibility more to the local level, that we’re going to see a change in the pattern of where people build homes," Rasker says.…