I was able to move up to Northwest Washington state a few years ago, so I've escaped the annual conflagration. The eucalyptus are only a small part of the problem. Long periods of drought each year keep the plants scrubby, small and dry. Since they are close to the ground and tinder-dry, it takes only a spark from a campfire or lightning strike to set up a blaze. THEN add to that the seasonal Santa Ana winds, with gusts past sixty miles per hour, and you have the perfect storm.

Where I lived, in Chino, it was a large, long bowl-shaped valley surrounded my mountains on the north and east and tall hills to the west and south. Often we would be able to see the flames on the mountains or hills, and the smoke would get so bad my students would not be allowed to have recess outside and would have to pull up their shirts just to go down the outside hallways to get to the bathrooms. Ashfall would cover the cars and sidewalks, cloaking the landscape in gray. When the rain would finally come, residents would have to worry that the hillsides would come slithering down into their houses in the form of mud.

I don't miss a bit of it. Up here is gorgeous, and far too wet most of the time to cause concern about forest fires. The air and water are pure and clean. And people truly care about keeping it all that way.