It’s a truism California’s harsh 2016 fire season has proved all over again: Wildfire is not the problem; the problem is people living in dangerous places.
As an economist, I would add that the reason people continue building on fire-prone lands, despite the known hazards, is because we have the incentives all wrong. Wildfire presents a classic case of a moral hazard, which is what occurs when someone takes a risk knowing someone else will bear a great deal of the cost if things go wrong.
…For too long policies have been set mostly in reaction to the last, worst fire. Now we have to bring together the firefighting community, city and county leaders, legal scholars and federal land managers to craft a set of rewards — and penalties — that will result in safer communities in the highly flammable West and the rest of the nation.
