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Climate Change, Wildfires, Housing and Insurance

All four topics are covered in a podcast.

I have become a regular listener to The Daily Podcast. Most recently they had a topic right up the Disaster Zone alley, "A Self-Perpetuating Cycle of Wildfires."

We have multiple issues all coming together with conflicting priorities.

First we have climate change that is heating up our environment and making wildland fires much more prevalent and severe. Then you have people looking to be close to nature and have the bonus of more affordable housing, so they move to the wildland fire interface zone. Homes burn due to raging fires and the homeowners who still have houses standing or those who want to rebuild can't get fire insurance. And, there are evidently mandates from the state of California to add lower cost housing. 

Is the priority going to be safety, affordable housing, subsidizing people's risky behaviors, etc.? This is the conundrum being played out in California and other parts of the West. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.