Wildfires in Southern California mark the change in seasons for those like myself who were born and raised in the Golden State.  Warm Santa Ana winds common in the fall always blow with the potential for disaster.  I watched the local news on TV with vivid interest on Saturday as fires began popping up across Los Angeles and Orange Counties, knowing that I would be traveling within the hour only a few short miles away from one of the areas ablaze. The camera on one of the news helicopters was focused on a large hillside home.   Most of the home was burning with at least two large fire trucks aiming their hoses on the fire. It was surely a lost cause. Two homes away at the end of the long cul de sac, we could see from the air that smoke was beginning to rise from the far side of another equally large home.    The firemen fighting the fire at the home a short distance away apparently could not see the slow beginning of the new fire. From the birds eye view, I knew it was only a matter of few minutes and that house would be lost as well. But all of the resources in that neighborhood were focused on the first house. I am sure that smoke from that fire obscured the view of the brave men and women on the ground, but it was sad to see resources poured on a lost cause when a nearby home could have been saved with some quick action. There were several properties on fire as the camera panned across this hillside.  So much for armchair firefighting.

Less than an hour later, my wife and I found ourselves traveling on the freeway near the same area I had been watching earlier on TV. I was sure that we would see smoke and distant flames along our journey, but we were truly at the wrong place at the wrong time, as a sudden fast moving firestorm leaped across the freeway right in front of us and began burning up into a residential area. Large red embers flew past my windshield.  It appeared that the forces on the ground did not expect the fire to cross this very large freeway as there was only one firetruck visible on that side.  Unfortunately by the end of the day, more than 200 families lost their homes on that side of the freeway alone.   I did learn firsthand however, that the view on the ground is remarkably different from the one 2000 feet up in the air.

As I continued driving, I couldn’t help but see parallels with the wildfires in California and the economic firestorm that was occurring on Wall Street. Aside from periodic reviews of the smoldering ruins of the majority of IRAs and 401ks, many people like myself were watching the economic carnage from the relative safety of our living rooms or workplaces. I too found it easy to criticize Hank Paulsen and others for changing policy in mid stream or so it seemed at 2000 feet. I began to realize that regardless of how the California or Wall Street fires started, there were real consequences to the choices made on how to fight the fires. Yes, the GSE’s (Freddie and Fannie), some Social Engineers, and others were simply playing with matches, unaware or uncaring of their potential flammable surroundings. But also standing on the side of the road were Central Bankers with accelerants in one hand, and a small fire extinguisher in the other. There were greedy investment bankers seen taking the match heads off matches and creating some spectacular incendiary devices. There are just too many suspects to point to while the hills are ablaze. The 'First Order' of business is to fight the fire. Arson investigators can go to work later.

Now that the Chinese and member of the EU have finally admitted that the trees are indeed on fire after seeing the smoke now for weeks and months, and our own government has activated Smoke Jumpers and everything they have to fight this firestorm, we will eventually see some containment to this out of control fire.