Drastic fires, drastic measures

Re “Planning, weather were among the fire breaks,” Nov. 26

Listening to the ongoing TV news of the latest fire in Malibu, I heard that many homes were burned despite pre-positioning of firefighter strike crews. Seems like minutes really do matter. Why not request the government provide instant warning of any hot spots in our Southern California area during fire season via its network of infrared heat-sensing satellites? It would seem that our billion-dollar brush fires occur more frequently and with a higher probability than Russian or Chinese ballistic missile launches.

Dwight Moberg

Manhattan Beach

Re “Malibu’s worst fire in years,” Nov. 25

After reading this article, I was assured that the world is going to end soon. It seems drastic, but with all these extreme cases of disasters happening in the past years, it cannot be argued that the world appears to be at its worst. We continuously get hit with superlative situations. From what I can remember, it started with the disheartening 9/11 attack, and each year since, something epic happens around the world. There were extremely bad cases of natural disasters, including the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, these California fires and countless others. The cause of the fire, as you stated, is still under investigation, but I think the main culprit is global warming. It is too much of a coincidence that natural disasters are occurring multiple times more now than they did decades ago.

Amy Serrano

Lancaster