My friend the mayor of Santa Rosa was scratching out a living as a freelance Press Democrat columnist in 2012 and was sparked to write about wildfires in Colorado, where he lived before coming to California.
Chris Coursey noted that the Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs, the most destructive in the state’s history, had killed two people, forced the evacuation of 30,000 and destroyed 350 homes.
Chris wrote in July of that year that in Colorado Springs and in Santa Rosa and elsewhere across the country, 10 million homes were built between 1990 and 2008 in or adjacent to the wildland-urban interface, “the zone between city and country where concrete gives way to forest, brush and grass.”
“In Santa Rosa,” he added, “think of areas such as Fountaingrove and Skyhawk.”