This website started as a commentary on the danger of wildland fire with specific reference to a proposed housing development in San Diego County called Stonegate/Merriam Mountains. The website has evolved into:

• A whistle-blowing effort that implicates the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, CalFire (the state firefighting agency), and Newland Communities (the major developer behind the project). The whistle-blowing effort is intended to draw the attention of the Governor of California, the U.S. Senators from the state of California, FEMA and Homeland Security, and the Department of Interior (with all its sub-agencies involved in the Wildland Urban Interface). It is only with the indifference or the implicit cooperation of these agencies that such a dangerous project as Stonegate/Merriam Mountains could be approved.
• An expose of how government officials promote dangerous and unjustifiable policies in order to reap large financial contributions from special interests.
• A complete historical investigation of the proposal to build a 2,700-home residential community atop one of the most dangerous and fire-hazardous mountains in all of Southern California. This is being done in spite of the inability to evacuate in certain likely wildfire scenarios.
• A recent update of the folly of the Shelter-In-Place fire strategy (requiring people to stay put in the event of a wildland fire instead of evacuating) that was highlighted by the 2009 Australian wildfires in which over 200 people lost their lives.

There is a striking comparison to be made between what is now occurring in San Diego County and what has occurred on Wall Street that led to the current global financial meltdown. In both cases, two common elements are at work:

(1) Risk-takers who are willing to sacrifice and destroy others by taking inordinate and unjustified risks for the sake of their own fast profit. These risk-takers (whether they be the developers who promote a dangerous project like Stonegate/Merriam Mountains or the promoters of irresponsible financial vehicles such as credit default swaps in a company like AIG) do not care what happens in the long run, since they will have disappeared with their massive profits long before the catastrophic consequences of their schemes become known; and

(2) A blind eye exhibited by government regulators who are supposed to curb obviously dangerous actions. In the case of the Wall Street meltdown, it was the inaction of the Security Exchange Commission, the rating agencies, the Federal Reserve and government oversight agencies in general. In the case of the Stonegate/Merriam Mountains development, it is the County Supervisors, State and federal legislators, CalFire, the Governor of California and the Federal Department of Homeland Security and Department of the Interior who are not reacting to whistle-blowing efforts that have pointed out the potential catastrophic effects if unsafe development is allowed to proceed.

This website contains the chapters of a book called "The Politics of Fire - The San Diego Catastrophe" that contains many details of what has occurred in San Diego County. This book stands as a permanent record and testament in the event the Stonegate/Merriam Mountains development is approved and built.

Each section of the website is identified to permit the reader to become familiar with the overall basics of the problem of building in the wildland urban interface.