[La Enchiladita]

I really don’t think anyone is stopping people from clearing brush on or adjacent to their property... are they?

Most of these developments have homeowners’ associations, and I would think they would address it.

Maybe after some of the residents get settled back in, they can answer the questions re how brush clearance is handled in their neighborhoods.

In the meantime, these fires jumped all kinds of boundaries and preventive measures. The wind was so wild that live embers were blown great distances. There is a limit to what humans who want to live next to “beautiful nature” can do in the way of prevention, in home building and in brush clearance.

[SCalGal]

There is a limit to what humans who want to live next to “beautiful nature” can do in the way of prevention, in home building and in brush clearance.

The wind came up over the mts at 103mph... there's no way to stop the embers at that speed.

[SE Mom]

Agreed :)

[farmer18th]

I really don’t think anyone is stopping people from clearing brush on or adjacent to their property... are they?

On the contrary, in Perris and Hemet, California, some residents were, in fact, kept from clearing brush from around their homes due to the Stephen's Kangaroo Rat habitat. In the Lake Arrowhead area, cutting a single tree required a very cumbersome permit process for many years. (The ironic thing is that the fire departments have had to go in and virtually clear cut around homes to fight the fire.)

[calcowgirl]

I really don’t think anyone is stopping people from clearing brush on or adjacent to their property... are they?

Yes. All the time. There are too many examples to list, but here is one example:

On October 26, 1993, dozens of homes and tens of thousands of acres in Riverside County were burned as a direct result of policies imposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The FWS designated 77,000 acres in Riverside County as a "rat preserve" for the kangaroo rat. Homeowners in that area knew that the buildup of brush posed a grave fire danger and sought to lightly plow their land in order to create firebreaks. But the Fish and Wildlife Service repeatedly threatened prison sentences and fines of up to $100,000 against homeowners who sought to protect their homes against fire hazards in the area of "protected" rat habitat.