Commenters who poo-pooed my suggestion that the Southern California fires might be terror-related should remember than al Qaeda has expressed interest in using fires as weapons of terror.
PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States.Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it. ...
The Republic reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country.
If the SoCal fires turn out to have a terror connection (for which there is no evidence now that I'm aware of) perhaps the leftists in that region of the country will be more motivated to support the Global War on Terror.
Update:
At least one fire was caused by arson. Who are the most likely suspects?
"If the SoCal fires turn out to have a terror connection (for which there is no evidence now that I'm aware of) perhaps the leftists in that region of the country will be more motivated to support the Global War on Terror."
That assumes that the leftists are unhappy about the fires. But these fires resulted primarily from laws and policies that the fanatic greens on the left put into place. In the name of not disturbing Mother Gaia, it's apparently illegal to clear dead brush and establish reasonable firebreaks. The pretext for these laws is about saving endangered species, but you don't have to dig very far in the green movement to find raw hatred of humanity.
Of course, the greens are only part of the left. But the rest of them are glad to have any catastrophe that will convince people to give more power to the government. The media are already claiming that global warming caused these fires, rather than insane laws against clearing dead brush. I don't expect the left to be upset about these fires at all.
A liberal protesting the Iraq War.
How would you stop a terrorist striking with fire?
That's a serious question; I don't know how easy it is to start a big fire like that.
Does Cal not have regular natural fires? That would take care of dead brush automatically, and tradition forest ecosystems rely on frequent fires. I'm guessing that there've been no fires recently or else the brush wouldn't have accumulated.
jez: I have no idea. SoCal does have natural fires pretty often, but it's unusual for so many fires to start within 24 hours of each other. Really though, it's a natural danger of the area.
When it doesn't rain for a while we get warnings that "the brush is all really dry, increasing the danger of fire!"
Then when it rains, we get "all the rain is making the brush grow faster, increasing the danger of fire!"
Basically the best solution is to not build in those areas, but land is at a premium in SoCal already.