I spoke with a friend from Ventura, CA, last night: she's a professional in the county park system and spent many years, as I did, working for the Forest Service and the Park Service as a ranger and a fire fighter. In December 2017 there were horrific fires in the same general area, and one of them burned to within a couple of blocks of her house. The chaparral area has been colonized by all of the neighborhoods but the tinder dry landscape does what it's going to do - it burns, houses and all. And basically the fuel that was left after last year's fires is what is burning this year. The county is going to be bare of living trees when all of this is over.