The view I think Doug is citing is the view that says the best remedy for forest fires is to clear-cut the forests. Which is mistaken, even if one is not a tree hugger, because people who clear cut cannot be relied upon to clean up the slash. I think sympathy for people who build out in the woods can also be overstated. Of course, you can't let them just die if a fire comes. So the moral is, they really shouldn't be permitted to build out there. People are not permitted to go rock-climbing in the city, because the city should not be required to pay the cost of rescuing them, or scraping them off the sidewalks. The same applies here.

If people are that insistent on their "self reliance" and their "property rights," they should genuninely be self-reliant. Which they just aren't.