Sue the environmentalists!

Fire. Beautiful and hypnotic – and a merciless killer that gives no quarter.

We have a love-hate relationship with those flames.

Historians look back at the time man discovered fire and learned to use it. Cooking. Heat. Protection. Manufacturing.

Fire is a benefit, yet it can cause the most horrifying, complete destruction of our world. And flames kill.

We see it now. As I write, the trail of blazes across Southern California continues, despite the turn of weather from dry/hot/windy to cold/damp/windy.

As the fires burn and flames swirl through canyons and into business and residential areas, and as we trace the path of destruction by following the ash and ruins, the full import of the loss is still beyond us.

The latest, but changing, figures are stunning:

• more than 730,000 acres devastated;
• at least 2,600 homes destroyed;

• 20 dead, with officials warning more victims may be found in the burned out ruins across 5 counties.

There’s no estimate of the animals killed by the flames – domestic pets, farm animals, wild animals and birds.

There also aren’t – yet – any tallies of vehicles, outbuildings, businesses, infrastructure and other damage from the firestorms.

It would be impossible to calculate the loss of personal records, medical histories and files, business information, tax papers, ownership documents, wills and trust information, school records – all those infernal papers that are “proof” of our existence and vital for our journey through the years.

There are estimates of the cost to the state of fighting the fires and of the economic loss – but think multi-billions. Insurance-company actuaries are frantically hitting the calculators to come up with figures to estimate the cost of the losses they’ll be dealing with. There’s no doubt the construction industry is looking with some measure of anticipation at the money that will be spent to rebuild, although it wouldn’t be seemly to talk openly about it now.

And there’s the human loss. So far, 20 dead. Each of those people is an important story – their lives, their loved ones and the circumstances of how and why they died.

But beyond the tragedy of the deaths, there is also the personal devastation of all those people whose properties burned. How do you deal with the loss of every single tangible item you own? Everything. Yes, I know, getting out with your life and your family, and sometimes your family pets, is wonderful and really, all that matters.

But yet – yet.

The searing flames hungrily devoured memories and mementos – bits and pieces of what holds lives together. Those are real losses, too, especially poignant because they can never be replaced. Wedding pictures and family albums, videos and tapes, children’s tiny first clothing, childish drawings, diaries, letters, cherished pieces of furniture, paintings, jewelry, music, hobbies, collections, souvenirs – everything that we’ve spent our lives collecting. These are possessions that provide the scaffolding of our physical existence, even though we may not need them to live.

Sure, we all have too much. We all have full closets, attics jammed and garages stacked with boxes. But all that stuff represents bits and pieces of our lives. Yes, if we took the time, we might give much of it away; if we had the garage sale, we might sell much of it.

But when a fire wantonly eats our lives with gusto, it leaves a terrible emptiness within and a feeling of enormous loss and devastation. Insurance is good, but there isn’t a dime that can replace those personal losses.

But while thousands deal with personal losses, politicians are regrouping to blame someone. The Bush administration is targeted by California (and other) Democrats who say requests for forest clearing money were ignored.

The federal forest bureaucracy is being blamed for not providing early aerial defense.

There’s little if any disagreement that trees killed by bark beetle infestation provided a super-abundance of fuel for the conflagration.

But almost no one in the media points the finger at the one place where blame can fall without question: environmentalists.

In their dogged quest to “protect” the forests and wildland, they’ve successfully prevented the cutting or removal of trees, living or dead.

Their mantra is that the footprint of man must be removed, and they’re perfectly willing for fire do the job.

Whether the cause of the fire was domestic arson or international terrorism, the fact remains that if the fuel wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have had fires of such magnitude.

It’s about time some smart lawyer sues the environmentalists for a change. They deserve it.