This Isn’t the California I Married

“We need to stop thinking a dashing rescuer in a red slicker or yellow fire-​resistant shirt should come save us from wildfire. We don’t fight hurricanes. We don’t fight tornadoes. No one assumes there will be an armed defense from an earthquake or a flood. Instead, we bolt our houses to our foundations. We raise our homes on stilts. Now we, Californians of the Anthropocene, need to grow up, take responsibility and stop expecting to be saved.”

I've been reading a lot of the long form articles on wild fire as well as listening to podcasts, given where I live and what my area experienced in the fall of 2020, it makes sense. This paragraph is very much a theme I'm seeing emerge from a lot of what I'm reading and listening to. Wild fire is gonna happen and it's up to all of us who live in these regions to start taking some responsibility and stop thinking that it's all the job of government and fire fighters to save us.