Interestingly hills used to be considered a horrible place to build and poor shanty towns were constructed up the hill with the nicer parts of town in the valle

Interestingly hills used to be considered a horrible place to build and poor shanty towns were constructed up the hill with the nicer parts of town in the valley. People didn't want to climb up the hill every day, you had problems with access to water and supplies. The ground was prone to shifting. You also had high winds and yeah, in fire prone areas, fire goes uphill. What changed? Automobiles, reinforced concrete, retention walls, lift pumps, subsidized road construction.. People in LA with money now want their homes perched up a hill with inaccessible terrain covered in brush below it (that ensures nobody will build on their view!). Same with oceanside land by the way. If you go to the shore of the bay of Biscay in France, for instance, the "seaside" villages are built not on the beach, but a few hundred yards inland. Building right on a sandy storm-swept shoreline would have seemed ludicrous when those towns were being constructed.