h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Amy, I do hope you are not anywhere near the fires. I have seen horrific pictures on the tv, and have been thinking of you.

Wasn't Ron Weasley's rat called "Scabbers"?

What's the car called Amy?

I meant to reassure folks about the fires last night... THey're quite far awy, in Southern California--Sacramento is north of center. *looks at globe* About like if the fires were in London and I were up past Edinburgh

The car was named 'The Vroom-Vroom Car' over on Questions Only when we got it. Probably by Tac

Thanks, Tom

It *was* Scabbers, not Scammers.

Of course, neither name was the correct one,
as it turned out.

Amy, glad to hear you are a long way from the fires. But it would be even better to hear that they weren't going on at all.

Is there anything that can be learned from
these fires? Were there any homes that were spared
because of measures the owners took?

Or was it a question of building in fire-prone areas?
Just curious. The newspapers seemed to mention
that the fires tended to spare the nearby trees and
just burn the houses.

Speaking of building things in places where disaster
seems probable: Taiwan will soon have the world's
tallest building. This is just what they need.
The last big earthquake that hit Taipei tipped over some
tall buildings.

One of the fires was started by a lost guy who started it to make a signal, they may prosecute him.

When the fires were ranging around Sydney, I read that a guy had been seen starting quite a few, I wonder if they ever caught him? I so don't understand that kind of destructive behaviour. Fire has its place in some agricultural situations but that is by people who know what they are doing. These fires are being started by either idiots or those with malicious intent.

CENSUSTAKER: Name?

CITIZEN: Jingles Nastyheart.

CENSUSTAKER: Are you an idiot, or a malicious person?

CITIZEN: I don't know nuthin'. If you ask me again,
I'll feed you to my pet pirrhanas. But you'll have
to wait, as I'm missing some fingers and half of
my left foot.

What we can learn is that one of the fires in California was started by an idiot, therefore put up appropriate signs warning against such behaviour. The second thing we can learn is that if fires are started by those with malicious intent it is difficult to do anything about them.

But the first thing to learn is who starts the fires and why. Okay maybe it will be difficult to identify these people, but that doesn't mean we havn't learnt anything in the process of trying to understand what is going on.

perhaps people should stop building matchstick houses in fire country... just a thought.

-- DoctorMO --