This past week has seen some of the biggest wildfires in California in recent memory. They may be by far the worst fires in souther Californian history, if only because man has chosen to expose himself to the risk of fire by moving into wild lands that once where free to burn without interference.

Our natural world depends on fire. Fire restores and reinvigorates ecosystems. This is what makes ecosystems like the Albany Pine Bush possible. Fire is needed to clean out “trash” species and allow desirable species to flourish. Fire is as important to nature as it to us humans to fuel are cars and out houses.

These natural fires that clean up the natural world and remove inferior species also destroy much of what humans build and utilize within their fire-swept borders. Most human built structures fair poorly when their beams and insides are ravaged by fire. Humans don’t want their houses to be emptied out by fire and left only as charred walls, only to come back the next year replaced with new plant growth. They want their engineered, climate controlled palaces to remain the way they currently are.

And indeed, humans and their livestock will be killed or injured in these fires. People tried desperately their rescue their horses, cattle, and pets prior to the invading wall of fire. Many animals where saved. Others will perish in the most unseemly death by the fire. Given time, their human owners can reproduce and bring back new animals, but only after a significant financial and emotional lost. Livestock can be replaced, but not a beloved horse. Property tax bills and truck payments don’t wait until new steer are up to weight.

To say nothing of the lost memories destroyed by the fire, and the property that is not insured. We know some people are unable to afford homeowner’s insurance or are otherwise too foolish to protect their greatest assets. Those who do have insurance, still may not receive enough help to make it through these difficult times, as nature takes the upper-hand, and tries to clean up both natural and man-made scars into its landscape.

We wish people would not build there houses so close to the natural world, and choose compact living rather then living up in the frontier. And those who choose to live in the woods, be aware and be willing to have their structures destroyed at a moments notice, when nature comes to call. Buildings will burn in a wildfire, and structures will be destroyed. That’s all part of the greater natural structure that sustains us all, part of the life and death process that is constantly happening inn the natural world around us.