Email from a former insurance guy in CA thinks everyone should ask why in the hell wood houses were insured in the middle of the dense forest and underbrush. He states that the underwriting statistic of fire in these areas is 100% in a fifteen year period. Translated, this means premiums in excess of 100% of replacement cost every 13 years is necessary. Premiums like that would be prohibitively costly, therefore the State (taxpayers) underwrites these risks in an assigned risk program. AND, under the insurance theory of spreading the risk, everyone else pays higher premiums. Why are wood houses allowed? They've been there for years. Even new stucco homes could not have survived a fire in fifteen year old growth that has never been thinned out, courtesy of the environmental lobby. So far only FOX is mentioning the environmentalist contribution to this. People who had the dead trees on their own property cut them down at their own expense, but the government lands were not cut due to enviro nut pressure.