Genie,

I wasn't speaking of all land in private hands, but was visualizing the kind of land that is on fire right now. Logic dictates that if you don't want your house to burn, you keep the fuel away from it and you don't make it look like fuel to the advancing fire. Even with alternative building materials, some common sense is required.

I oppose building in flood plains the way so many have, and then the continual rebuilding after these places flood so destructively year after year. This is particularly a problem in many prime agricultural areas. I saw a lot of flooding in the Skagit Valley in Washington, but the houses down in there were built on very tall foundations to avoid the problems of flooding. They probably don't build that way any more, just cross their fingers that the levees will hold.

I should note that I live in a flood zone, and pay for flood insurance, but I'm in that marginal area that will probably never actually flood. It got this status when a road and bridge were built in such a way (badly) to cause the creek to backup and at one time it did used to tickle the foundations of a couple of the houses on my end of the block. But they rebuilt the bridge and the street and that has ceased to be a problem. I calculated the risk, I had a survey done, I interviewed neighbors and officials and hounded the insurance company for any statistics they could draw upon before making this choice.

There are lots of accounts of people buying "marginal" lands (wetlands, in particular) who cheat and fill them in when no one official is looking and THEN file for permits to build. It happened down the road from my Dad's house, and annoyed the neighbors no end, that the guy who bought the land pulled that fast one. I guess it didn't occur to anyone to report it at the time it was happening.

A few years ago I almost bought a house on 3/4 acre in the Manzano Mountains, east of Albuquerque. My ex's divorce attorney messed up that purchase, and I'm still mighty sorry that one got away from me. But I knew that every year I'd be out doing my own fire patrol and be ready to set up fire hose or dig a line on little notice. And fall the trees nearest the house. (I used to fight fire with the U.S. Forest Service, so I've had lots of practice.) I had plans to put in a cistern, and to use gray water on the garden. That house would have been a lot riskier proposition than my house on the creek, and it was on land that many consider special, beautifully timbered and in a nice climate. But I'd have taken that risk, because I felt that I could reasonably protect the house should fire threaten.

Maggie