The King Fire is one of ten major wildfires to strike California recently. Estimates say there are over 200 fires burning right now. Each of these fires has a significant toll on the surrounding areas. In the short-term people have to evacuate homes, cease work, and pay firemen. In the King Fire's life time over 2,000 homes were evacuated, 455-thousand gallons of fire-retardant and thousands of gallons of water, with an estimated cost of $5 million a day. The long-term consequences are ambiguous, arguably much worse than the short-term. Damage from the fires and people moving out of fire-prone areas can decrease property values. Fire prevention methods such as dumping water can further escalate drought issues. Increasing firemen payroll can result in necessary increased taxes. And all of this is happening while California is already scraping along, desperate for water from a three-year drought and still recovering from a real-estate downfall.
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