Re: RIP, Bill.
Being on top of things only lets you know that there's high fire danger, which the whole region was being warned about at the time. Survivors have made it pretty clear that there was no warning — by the time they were aware that there was a fire, they had maybe a matter of minutes to get out of there, then the resulting traffic gridlock meant many had to abandon their cars and try to outrun the flames to the nearest water source.
Forest management may or may not have helped. The rural part of last year's Wine Country fire was across dry grass and occasional scrub oaks, but it showed the same "firestorm" behavior that this one did. The main things that the two sites really had in common was that they're both believed to have been set off by faulty electrical lines over dry vegetation and spread by high winds.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
