I notice that there is an argument growing between Washington DC and the State of California ... about the costs of these wildfires.

I have no intention of getting involved in the politics.

Let me simply say this. California has an enormous quantity of dead brush, all over the western side of the State. This has been caused by many years of droughts. Our long-term weather cycle is getting much drier. In addition, many of our forests contain large proportions of dead pine trees. These trees were killed by pine bark beetles. In some forests, the dead trees are 40%, or 50%, or 60% - or more - of the total tree coverage. This is not true of all the CA forests, but it is certainly true in parts of Southern California and the Sierras.

It is completely impossible for Californians to log out all the dead timber, or remove all the dry underbrush. The economics make this impossible.

For this reason ... it is easy to make the prediction ... the worst days of California wildfires still lie AHEAD of us.

How Washington DC will handle this ... I cannot say. But I wonder if the USA national expense for emergency disasters (hurricanes, floods, wildfires) is starting to look like a rising exponential curve?