The quickening pace of the destruction of California's forests by wildfire is staggering. In the last 3 months four million acres of our 33 million acres of forest have burned. That's 12%. From 2000 to 2019 4 million acres burned and before that it took 66 years - 1933 to 1999- to burn 4 million acres. The exponential increase in the burn rate is an existential threat to the Golden State. Yet we still do not have an overarching strategic plan to bring the wildfire menace under control. The same old opponents to efficient management of our forests are still dragging their feet. California needs an immediate change to bring in stakeholders like the healthcare industry and emergency services to come up with a broad plan not beholden to narrow but noisy interests.
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We are a "deep dive" news podcast, for Americans who get their news from the Internet. Our mission is to give the listener succinct, fact based analysis both non-ideological and independent from a California, Silicon Valley perspective.
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Jim Herlihy is a published author: his novel “Deceit and Dirty Money” is available on line. He served as President of the SF Public Library Commission 1992 - 1996. While working in Latin America, he was a stringer for The Economist, The Times and the BBC. Jim serves as a director on two SF sister city boards : Bangalore, India and Cork, Ireland.