The tweet-vid at the end of this article highlights both the micro and macro factors that will continue to plague the greater Los Angeles and surrounding areas. The micro aspect displays personal, homeowner irresponsibility. The macro aspect brings into clear, widescreen focus, urban development corridors reaching well into the hinterland, which should have probably been left untouched given the last 100 years of climatological data.

Both compounding factors can be mitigated but only through a collaborative effort of both governmental agencies charged with specific tasks, and the individual home- or land-owner.

Mediterranean climate or clime not so fine

Every first-year Meteorology student learns about the climatic zones, aka climes, which encompass Planet Earth. It might interest many to learn that there are only three places on the planet which experience a seasonal, if not year-round, Mediterranean climate. The first and the origin of the term is obvious. Perhaps that was why the Greeks and Romans built everything they could out of stone and marble despite plenty of wood to go around, notwithstanding the sack of cities by the Persians, the Huns, the Visigoths, and others.

The second geographical location is Southern California and the third is the Northern Territories, not including the northernmost point, which is quite tropical.

The reoccurring pattern that both Australia and California share is wildfires. The historiographers from the Classical era do not mention wildfires per se, as consequential at all among the many, other disasters which befell Athens.

Historical accounts with respect to how climate shaped a society were all-the-rave about how healthy the olive trees and grapevines grew, leading to the production of oil and wine, two of the more sought-after commodities.

The climatology may have been a gift from Olympus to the Greeks, but it leaves a lot to be desired in a society where wood and other flammables are the dominant, building materials.

High fire-hazard zones should not be subdivided

The Los Angeles City Fire Department, LAFD, has a specialized unit designated as the "High Fire Hazard-Brush Clearance Unit." Its charge is to ensure that the ring of potential destruction surrounding most of L.A.-proper and all of the San Fernando Valley, never flares out of control in the form of wildfires.

While a noble goal, such an operation can be only so effective when the fiscal year for the Brush Clearance Unit in terms of monitoring homeowner runs from April to just November.

If Los Angeles city government was less concerned about defying federal immigration law and more concerned about local issues which can quickly flare out of control, said Brush Unit would be on-the-job at least from March to December. I think there needs to be a fundamental shift in how the city views and mitigates the consistent and uniquely geographical, local problems.

SoCal's wildfire problems are also unique in that newer subdivisions, especially those in Ventura County, and northern L.A. County, Santa Clarita and Newhall specifically, have houses so tightly packed together you can literally reach out with a pole-saw and tap your neighbor's bedroom window.

For every property that burned during the recent fires in California's wine country, there would be 20 dwellings based on the layouts of recent subdivisions. Until developers' greed is put in check and we, as a society, stop building in high-hazard zones - forget about the insurance - such conflagrations will continue. It is high-time to employ the idiom, "It's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there" to cities' master plans in the context of urban planning.
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