Generally, the government for the land that is being burned controls the fire fighting efforts. So, if it’s a state park on fire, then the state is in charge, but if it’s federal land, the forest service is in charge. And if it’s some combo, then it’s the feds. That is, after they arrive. For the fist day or two it’s whoever gets there first (first responder), they’re in charge, even if they’re the little guys.

In general, though, it’s really well organized. like I said earlier, fires are very common in California. This is nothing new. The reason it’s such a big deal this year is that it’s larger than normal and because the population keeps growing so rapidly that huge numbers of human lives are threatened (and animal lives too).

But a natural forest fire is very different than the collapse of government built levees.

The whole situation is so very different. Comparing California with New Orleans is really just an effort to divide and conquer. If we’re all quibbling about who’s more or less deserving of help then we’re not focusing on the failings of our government in either place.

In California, you either have earthquakes, landslides or fires going at some time or other. Memories of these go back as long as I can remember.

The point being, how many people stayed in their houses and waited to see if the fires were going to burn their houses down?

I live on the Gulf coast. When you hear about hurricanes, you keep your news current and if you haven’t already left the area, you leave as soon as you can when it looks like it is going to get your area.

It is the same thing. Fire is a big motivator. Imagine that.

As Sarah has said too, so much of the infrastructure there is working still. Funny how incoming flood waters will stop things.

Comparing a bad fire situation like this to an area affected by a hurricane is not an apples to apples comparison.

In all my years on the Gulf, I had not heard cries of racism until Katrina. Nagin & Blanco hold a large blame in their failures as leaders in the early stages of things. FEMA could have done better.

But to fault it on racism?? Give me a break!
People there gambled that the hurricane would miss. They lost. See if they stick around on the next hurricane. I am betting they won’t and will head out as soon as they can.

Are these actually volunteers, or paid? Phrases like “has its own” sound unlike phrases one associates with volunteers.

The reason I ask is that Australia has had 3 bushfires in the last 8 years, I think, about the same size as these US ones. One set - the 2005 Eyre peninsula fires - happened just after I moved to Japan and I didn’t even know they happened. In 2003 the Capital was half-surrounded by bush fires and we lost about 500 homes, but I don’t remember many evacuations. I wonder if the difference is an extensive network of volunteers moving in to quickly fight the fires, making it easier to prevent damage reaching settled areas (we have 200,000 volunteer firefighters in Australia). It could just be that our capital is very small, though…

And yet, despite the fact that we were prepared for the brush fires here in So Cal, they’re still burning out of control, have displaced 1 million people, and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage. Because sometimes the natural disaster is even bigger than the one you prepared for.

NoCal has plenty of fires too, as does most of the mountainous west.

The scary thing we don’t get on a regular basis is big earthquakes. Totally unpredictable. So it’s the threat that hangs over us Californians every day that we can’t really do much about…

Yes the southern coast states have hurricanes every year, and the midwest has tornados every year, and SoCal has brush fires every year.

Er, are you under the impression that Category 4 hurricanes happen every year in New Orleans?

And I’m pretty sure the Army Corps of Engineers are part of the federal government, not the state or local government.