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sunshine-otoday at 9:35 PM1 replyview on HN

Also I can understand fires in gigantic forests in Canada or mountainous area are almost impossible to prevent but just looking at the Gironde/Bordeaux area on Google Maps it just looks like an absolute failure by the state.

And this is not an earthquake, it happens every years at the same time.

It is too easy to blame climate change.


Replies

well_ackshuallytoday at 10:28 PM

They repeatedly underspent on hardware (bought 2 canadairs instead of 4 to replace aging ones), people (last time the firemen protested for a higher budget, they were tear gassed by the police), forest management (cut off the budget of the forest management agency), enforcement (private forest owners have to introduce fire cut lines into their parcels, which they didn't do. Forest management agency has nobody to spare to go verify that they did, and even when that happens, it takes years to be judged, or the government drops the case), ecology as a whole, and the list goes on.

But don't worry, it's not just about fires. The same can be said about pretty much everything they've done.