Firefighters watch a backfire on a hillside in Jamul, Calif., Tuesday, October 23, 2007.
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Wisconsin's Radeloff says those who choose to build homes in fire zones are "gambling with high stakes--and right now many of them are losing." One answer might be to make clear to those who choose to build in the highest-risk areas that they are effectively on their own--a message the insurance industry, which has grown reluctant to protect exposed properties, is communicating to Western homeowners. But while it's easy to see that logic--and to point fingers at the very victims of the fires--this week it's impossible not to focus more on the terror and worry of those whose homes are at risk, like Lee Hamilton. By the time the 60-year-old San Diego radio personality woke to a reverse-911 call early on the morning of Oct. 22, embers were already raining over his house. Hamilton barely had time to save his 93-year-old mother and a suitcase full of insurance papers before fleeing. "When I pulled out of my driveway, my mind-set was, I was saying good-bye to all my memories," he says. "I thought the whole neighborhood was going to be leveled." When he returned the next morning, fewer than half the homes in his area had survived--including his own. But the sheer scale of the destruction in the city Hamilton has called home for 22 years has left him wondering how San Diego will go on. "I'm mostly numb. I really felt we were losing everything."
Of course, nature rarely abides apocalypse. By the time the flames finally begin to go out, the charred forests will be on their way to rebirth. "The plants will put in new growth soon," says David Weise, a project leader with the Forest Service's Forest Fire Laboratory in Riverside, Calif. "The forest is amazingly resilient."
So are people. After the devastating wildfires of 2003, 1993 and 1970, Californians rebuilt and returned to the scorched hills in ever greater numbers. No doubt they will do so again after the wildfires of 2007. But the larger question is, Should they? Inside a Wildfire
Once sparked, these blazes create their own dynamic. Add hot wind, and disaster is inevitable. [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy or pdf.]