California fires show danger of government owned land

Americans are searching for a scapegoat for the most devastating fires in California history. Republicans blame Democrat politicians and bureaucrats and DEI. Democrats finger climate change. But the real problem is government owned land. Government owned land is the most polluted, burned and abused land in the country. 

Weyerhaeuser and other corporations that grow trees for paper and lumber own tens of thousands of acres across the U.S. without headlining the news because of fires ravaging their forests. The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group, privately owns over 100,000 acres in a dozen preserves that rarely have major fires. Almost all the horrific fires in the West take place in national forests and state parks. 

State and local governments own 60% of the forests in California. The two largest fires appear to have begun in forests owned by governments. The Palisades fire started in Topanga State park north of the town of Pacific Palisades and had burned 17,000 acres as of today. The Eaton fire began in the Angeles National Forest east of Altadena and had burned 13,000 acres. 

The Hurst fire also ignited in the Angeles National Forest east of the Eaton fire. The Kenneth fire started in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation area while the Sunset fire launched west of Griffiths Park on what appears to be state owned land, 

Why do so many fires start on government owned land and not in privately owned forests? The answer is simple: people take care of their property. No one cares for property they don't own as well as they would their own.

The National Forest Service made a monstrous mistake decades ago by extinguishing fires quickly in national forests. They had good intentions, as all socialists do. But the policy resulted in massive amounts of dry wood piling up in forests that have fueled the worst fires of the last two centuries. For the past two decades, the service has tried to recover from that error with controlled burns and using equipment to remove dead wood and brush. But extreme fires have done most of the work for them. Controlled burns, mechanical clearing and creating fire breaks would have made the fires in California much less severe even with the Santa Anna winds.

God knew what he was doing when he sanctified private property in the Ten Commandments with "Thou shalt not steal." Private ownership of land protects God's creation far better than any government can. Socialists always think they can make government work better, but as the California fires prove, they fail most of the time. The real solution to the annual fire problem in the state is to privatize the forests.