Several reasons actually.
Certainly home builders have 'encroached on the natural environment' but think about that- that is what home builders to a certain degree always do. I think perhaps what you meant to say is that home builders built in areas that are naturally more dangerous for fire- and that is certainly true- amongst tree covered hills, with narrow windy roads.
But the fires I am talking about had nothing to do with 'forest managers'- because virtually none of the land involved in Northern California was public land managed by any foresters. Virtually all was private land managed by private land owners.
Why were the fires disastrous? Mostly due to wind conditions and more humans living in the area- but also due to alerts not going out early enough to residents to alert them to be ready to run.
Of course under your scenario- you would be advising people not to prepare of evacuation because you don't believe the people sending out the alert.
Wrong, as usual, the fires were worse because the way that homes are built is stupid. The home builders build them close together and when a fire comes to them they are a chain reaction waiting to happen. Of course, this is the way houses have ALWAYS been built. Take a look at the fires in ancient Edo, or the Chicago fire, or a whole host of fires that happened in the past. This last fire is NO DIFFERENT from those.
Sigh.
Yes the way homes are built is often stupid- especially the choices in roofing and siding material.
But this was very, very different from say the great Chicago fire. I speaking of the Northern California fires because I know that area very well, and know what happened there very well.
The houses in the area- in general- consisted of two main groups- houses on the flat lands- mostly suburbia- either within city limits, or just outside of city limits, and houses in the hills- generally either individual homes on good size lots, or fairly dispersed subdivisions.
The first fires started outside of Calistoga, which is a small town, with steep hills on two sides. Winds were fierce and quickly blew through ridges and across hills towards Santa Rosa, taking down power lines and cell towers along the way- the first houses that burned were in the hills- again nothing like crowded urban Chicago. The winds and the fuel whipped up fires with temperatures high enough to melt metals.
The ash from the fires were blown by the winds all over the area and started dozens of other fires. When the first thrust of the fire hit Northern Santa Rosa, it hit low density suburban subdivisions and hill developments first- then blew across Hwy 101 and two other frontage roads to take out a K-Mart- and then headed into the Coffee Park subdivision- which is a typical subdivision found in much of America- and has little in common with urban Chicago of 1871- more densely populated that the first subdivisions, but hardly urban.
Frankly I am beginning to wonder if you have any interest in the facts at all- to compare urban Chicago of 1871 to suburban Coffee Park of 2017 is just bizarre. The housing density is not similar at all.
Nor were the conditions the same. The Northern California fire was essentially started by very high winds which caused rapid spreading- and changed the weather itself. The Chicago fire was started in a very densely populated area of wooden buildings at a time when people kept lots of fuel in their homes- there was no electricity distribution system then- while in NC it looks like the primary cause of the fire may have been damage from the wind to power lines.
