Homes Keep Rising in West Despite Growing Wildfire Threat In the summer of 2000, drought-fueled wildfires devastated the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. July 5, 2013 The death of 19 firefighters in Arizona this week highlights what has become a fact of life in the West: Every summer, smoke fills the big skies yet people continue to build in the places that burn most. More people live in these areas, and many balk at controls on how and where to build. “There’s a self-selection factor in there — people who don’t want the government to do things tend to move to places where the government isn’t around to do things,” said Don Elliott, a senior consultant at Clarion Associates, a land-use consulting firm. [...] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/us/homes-keep-rising-in-west-despite-growing-wildfire-threat.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/us/homes-keep-rising-in-west-despite-growing-wildfire-threat.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]