Despite the ranting and ravings of Governor Moonbeam, climate change has nothing to do with the latest series of California wildfire. The Governor’s claims reveal an antiquated state of mind from the 1960s – blame someone or something that nobody has any control over. A fact known to everyone in the California naturalist community is the prevailing climate condition in the state is drought. The Twentieth Century was the third wettest century of the last forty centuries i.e. (4,000 years). During the twentieth Century California’s population rose six times, approaching 40,000,000 human beings, yet going forward the state may face a century of drought.

No one knows the complete climate history of California e.g. if there is no rain over those Thirty-seven (37) centuries, is there wind? Wind is the primary cause for the spread of wildfires and the biggest threat to human habitation.

Wind and face combine with a nature policy (influenced by fire policies in national Parks). This policy has been endorsed by environmentalists and city-ecology-dwellers (true Monday morning quarterbacks). Let forests grow and when fire comes it can burn, just like nature intended. That policy might be acceptable when there were ten million people in California, but the let it-burn-policy needs reevaluation.

One reason for a change of policy is every National and State Forest is a tinderbox. A figure given out in this decade is four of five trees in California is dead, or dying, from drought, natural causes or infestation. Those trees cannot be removed because the nature policy, previously mentioned, forbids it.

Twice since 2009 the nature policy of letting fires burn in National Forests has been publicly enforced. The Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest burned many square miles of land under very favorable conditions for the fire fighters and most landowners abutting that forest. Not many houses were lost. However in December 2017 the Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has become the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history, as it denudes the land known as Los Padres National Forest. It still burns (440 square miles), with a projected snuff date in January 2018.

Another fact makes the National and State Forests tinder boxes, ready to burn whatever the weather. Because they have been left alone, those woods are overgrown with underbrush and trees. About a decade ago a report said there were four times as many trees in forests around Big Bear Lake, California, as the land could bear.

Going forward, California and the National Government need a reevaluation of forest policies other than continuing the let-it-burn policies used in the National Parks. After all the burning, California will be unlikely make its forests great again – what the forests once were and again susceptible to fire in the future. Now is the Twenty-First Century, and there are enough interested people in the state to plan and implement new forest policies. One policy for everyone and every place is likely wrong. There may have to be several or many policies, depending upon local conditions. And in the future California and the National government can make their forests less fire-prone, and welcoming for visitors.