Wildfires bring out the best and worst in people. Everyone steps up to help when the flames are whipping, from the firefighters whose job it
is to control the damage, to friends, neighbors, and strangers who generously give aid and comfort to the victims. But even before the
ground cools, the inevitable blame game starts. Anyone who lives in wildfire country has seen the movie more than once; same scenes,
different players. Still, the part where people pull together to help each other has a renewing effect on my often jaded view of the nature of
mankind. The giving I've witnessed around Reno the last few days has been gratifying.

I've lived near wildfire potential for most of my life, which is why I long ago decided not to pine away for a house in the woods. In Redding, at
the north end of the Sacramento Valley, we had fires in the surrounding mountains that were scary if you stayed in town. The smoke got so
thick you had to drive with headlights on during the day and you could look directly at the orange orb of the sun without hurting your eyes.
From my house in Cameron Park, east of Sacramento in the Sierra foothills along Highway 50, I watched flames top a nearby ridge before
firefighters knocked them down.

It's a fact of life in the west; the woods and brush burn, pretty much every square foot sooner or later. Putting houses and towns in there
doesn't alter the natural order. Trying to change the landscape to accommodate human habitation doesn't work, either. People who live in
these areas will have a fire at some point, period. It's what they choose to do about it before the flames that determines what human and
property damage has occurred afterwards.