Why doesn't California get rid of those dangerous highly flammable eucalyptus trees? It's well known that this non native invasive species from Australia is highly fire prone.<p>I'm from Australia and I've lived through bushfires and witnessed them first-hand. During a bushfire when eucalypts reaches a certain temperature they just explode into an enormous fireball in a split second; it's truly frightening to see every leaf on a tree disappear up in flames in a couple of seconds.<p>When I first visited California quite a few decades ago almost the first two things I noticed was the hugh numbers of eucalyptus trees there were—they seemed to be everywhere—AND how well they grew there.<p>I was struck by both the size of the trees and the thickness of their canopies compared to what I was used to seeing in their native land.<p>Hopefully, this tragedy will make Californians rethink the policy of continuing to grow this invasive species and that they replace/replant with homegrown species that are much less fire prone.
tt feels llke this is just making a bunch of excuses for why fires are such a problem. The real question should be, is it impossible to have 100% safe controlled fires, or is it too costly? Can they not do smaller fires over weeks to make sure it doesn't get out of control? Can they not have a contingency plan in case one gets out of control?<p>I'm sure there are decades of discussion on this and I don't have all the information, but the results speak for themselves. For more than a decade we haven't been able to prevent catastrophic fires (not sure about before). Judging from the other problems plaguing CA for decades, it would seem there are other factors that have more to do with leadership. But what do I really know, maybe CA is a unique geography with unique history that all collide and create an extremely hard to manage state.