> This is kind of a weird op-ed. It frames this as though the costs are all red marker, but the costs of rebuilding include labor and materials and help to rein

> This is kind of a weird op-ed. It frames this as though the costs are all red marker, but the costs of rebuilding include labor and materials and help to reinvigorate local economies. I'm sure there is a net cost, but it has been serviceable so far. The example given is $1B to rebuild a community of 300, or $33M/person. There's no way that community can ever pay back that loan -- and if they can, why are we subsidizing it? > Insurance isn't mentioned at all in the article. WUI areas have become nearly impossible to insure, even if you're doing all the things right for making your property fire-resistant (and most homeowners in these areas aren't). As long as California's housing market stays red-hot, there will still be another sucker willing to pay for California's state-insurance-plan-of-last-resort, but someday, somehow, something's gonna change and all of a sudden a lot of people won't be able to afford homeowner's insurance, and that's going to gut a lot of the fire-prone small towns. The formula is simple: if a fire is expected every X years, and the cost to rebuild is $Y, can you charge $Y/X + some margin for profit and bad luck? Private insurance is saying no. If public insurance is saying yes, it is only via some form of subsidy. Should we be subsidizing the rural lifestyle in this way? We already directly subsidize rural roads, electrical infrastructure, hospitals, telecom, and more. We have many more indirect subsidies via higher electrical bills for the undergrounding of electrical transmission lines, agricultural subsidies, implied muni bond insurance, etc. We've got to draw the line somewhere, and we can't afford for it to be at $33M/resident.