I’m no stranger to wildland fires. Longtime readers may recall that my own home had the threat of wildfires here in Chico, California this past summer, as did many Butte County residents who not only were threatened, but lost homes.
View from my home on June 16th, 2008
The recent fires in Australia and the loss of life and property were apparently compounded by a draconian policy that prevented people who lived in the fire threat zones from cutting trees and brush near their properties. We witnessed something equally tragic in Lake Tahoe fire in 2007, owing to similar eco driven government stupidity forcing heavy handed policies there. Residents couldn’t get permits to cut down brush and trees, the result was a firestorm of catastrophic proportions.
A family in Australia saw the threat, decided on civil disobedience, cleared a firebreak, and got fined $50,000. They feel vindicated now, because their house is one of the few in Reedy Creek, Victoria, still standing, the only one in a two kilometer radius. Good for them.
The quote from the homeowner that is the title of this entry really does say it all. Here’s the story from The Sydney Morning Herald.
Fined for illegal clearing, family now feel vindicated
Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie
February 12, 2009 – 12:03AM
They were labelled law breakers, fined $50,000 and left emotionally and financially drained.
But seven years after the Sheahans bulldozed trees to make a fire break — an act that got them dragged before a magistrate and penalised — they feel vindicated. Their house is one of the few in Reedy Creek, Victoria, still standing.
The Sheahans’ 2004 court battle with the Mitchell Shire Council for illegally clearing trees to guard against fire, as well as their decision to stay at home and battle the weekend blaze, encapsulate two of the biggest issues arising from the bushfire tragedy.
Do Victoria’s native vegetation management policies need a major overhaul? And should families risk injury or death by staying home to fight the fire rather than fleeing?
Anger at government policies stopping residents from cutting down trees and clearing scrub to protect their properties is already apparent. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down,” Warwick Spooner told Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen at a meeting on Tuesday night.
Although Liam Sheahan’s 2002 decision to disregard planning laws and bulldoze 250 trees on his hilltop property hurt his family financially and emotionally, he believes it helped save them and their home on the weekend.
“The house is safe because we did all that,” he said as he pointed out his kitchen window to the clear ground where tall gum trees once cast a shadow on his house.
“We have got proof right here. We are the only house standing in a two-kilometre area.”
At least seven houses and several sheds on neighbouring properties along Thompson-Spur road in Reedy Creek were destroyed by Saturday night’s blaze.
Saving their home was no easy task. At 2pm on Saturday, Mr Sheahan saw the nearby hills ablaze.
He knew what lay ahead when the predicted south-westerly change came.
The family of four had discussed evacuation but decided their property was defensible, due largely to their decision to clear a fire break. It also helped that Mr Sheahan, his son Rowan and daughter Kirsten were all experienced members of the local CFA.
“We prayed and we worked bloody hard. Our house was lit up eight times by the fire as the front passed,” Mr Sheahan said. “The elements off our TV antenna melted. We lost a Land Rover, two Subarus, a truck and trailer and two sheds.”
Mr Sheahan is still angry about his prosecution, which cost him $100,000 in fines and legal fees. The council’s planning laws allow trees to be cleared only when they are within six metres of a house. Mr Sheahan cleared trees up to 100 metres away from his house.
“The council stood up in court and made us to look like the worst, wanton environmental vandals on the earth. We’ve got thousands of trees on our property. We cleared about 247,” he said.
He said the royal commission on the fires must result in changes to planning laws to allow land owners to clear trees and vegetation that pose a fire risk.
“Both the major parties are pandering to the Greens for preferences and that is what is causing the problem. Common sense isn’t that common these days,” Mr Sheahan said.
Melbourne University bushfire expert Kevin Tolhurst gave evidence to help the Sheahan family in their legal battle with the council.
“Their fight went over nearly two years. The Sheahans were victimised. It wasn’t morally right,” he said yesterday.
Dr Tolhurst told the Seymour Magistrates court that Mr Sheahan’s clearing of the trees had reduced the fire risk to his house from extreme to moderate.
“That their house is still standing is some natural justice for the Sheahans,” he said.
He said council vegetation management rules required re-writing. He also called on the State Government to provide clearer guidelines about when families should stay and defend their property.
Houses in fire-prone areas should be audited by experts to advise owners whether their property is defensible, Dr Tolhurst said.
Mr Sheahan said he wanted others to learn from his experience and offered an invitation for Government ministers to visit his property.
He would also like his convictions overturned and fines repaid.
“It would go a long way to making us feel better about the system. But I don’t think it will happen.”
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090212-85bd.html
There has been a lot of valuable comment here and unfortunately some rubbish spouted too.
Politicians today seem to have as their main reason for being, to be reelected for the next term. That is why they have succumbed to policies put forward by the vocal ‘greens’. Whether it be at State level or at Local Government level, policies have been put in place to panda to that ‘green’ vote in spite of so many people being against those policies.
I live on an unsealed road, only about a mile from a main road. Up until a few years ago, I would collect dead-fall wood from our roadside to take it home for firewood. The adjoining property owners endorsed what I was doing, but they didn’t need firewood. Since the local council has banned the removal of wood from roadsides, roads in forested areas are now narrow corridors passing through immense quantities of fuel. Our road runs roughly North South and there is a stand of native timber at the North end. If a fire got started anywhere near there, the roadside would become an immediate conduit for the flames, bringing them dangerously close to a couple of houses. Bear in mind that it is a North wind that is the most dangerous for fires here.
Under those circumstances, there is no way that I could use the road as an escape from a fire. Because I have lived in the Aussie bush for most of my life, I have several contingencies available should a fire come our way. The land immediately around the house is all cleared. The trees nearby are all deciduous, we have several ‘safe areas’ available to us.
If a gum tree decides to grow near our house, according to the authorities, because that is a native species, I have to let it grow. If I did that, then in a few years the house would be hidden in a gum tree forest. Needless to say, any such seedlings are quietly removed before they can be seen. If I wanted to remove a native tree from my property, I have to get council permission and if that permission is granted, then I have to plant something like 50 eucalyptus seedlings as compensation. Where is the logic in that? I know of some thinking people who have been through that process. In one case the householder (on 1 acre of land) arranged for the seedlings were planted on another property, miles away that he owned. In another case, the seedlings were planted, and after the inspector had departed, they suffered an accidental dose of Glyphosate.
We need some sense in the rules around planning. We need some sense in rules about siting houses. We need some sense in roadside vegetation. Deadwood harvesting from a roadside, reduces the fuel load and costs the local authorities nothing.
Finally, I would like to point out that our Shire Council arranged for our roadside to be slashed last year. For a while it helped because grass and small shrubs near to the road itself were removed. The slasher was inhibited where it could work because of large limbs and tree trunks lying close to the road, but at least an attempt to clean up was made. When did they do that work? In Autumn (Fall) after all threat of fire for the year had passed!
I live in the Blue Mountains near Sydney in Australia which also suffers from bush fires on a regular basis. Until recently the local Green party had control of the local council and had in place laws prohibiting back burning, clearing of bush for fire breaks and the removal of trees and brush from properties. This insane policy lead to a massive build up of the fuel load in the national parks and public lands in the area and resulted a few years ago in massive bush fires that destroyed quite a few homes and lead to the death of several people and caused significant irreparable damage to the local world Heritage listed national parks.
The Irony is that environmentalists in the Blue mountains actually thought they were saving and preserving the natural flora and fauna of the region by prohibiting the use of effective time tested methods of forestry management to reduce the fuel load of bush land areas, when in fact all they managed to do was irreparably damage the local ecosystem and cost people their lives and property when the inevitable happened as a result of their dumb ideologically driven policies.
DJ wrote – “This was the hottest day on record on top of the driest start to a year on record on top of the longest driest drought on record on top of the hottest drought on record the implications are clear…”
I find the driest start to a year comment amusing as it completely fails to mention the large amount of rain south east Australia recieved in early December.
Where I live in south east S.A. we recieved 130mm in one 24 hour period – which is about the average rainfall we recieve for the combined months of December, January and February.
Matt, I’m curious as to how the Greens had control of the Blue Mountains town council “until recently” when in the 2008 election, they achieved 23.6% on a 5.7% swing. You are telling us that they controlled the council on a vote of less than 18%. And they achieved this swing in the last election despite “insane” policies that are now no longer in place. Remarkable.
Also as far as I can tell from trawling past news reports, the previous council of Blue Mountains had 3 independents, 1 Green, 4 ALP and 3 Liberal councillors. That makes it the more remarkable that the Greens could have been setting policy. Or did you mean the 2008 council at some point was dominated by 3 Greens out of 12 councillors?
Here is the current policy: http://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/sustainableliving/bushfireandemergencies and here it is the year before the 2008 election: http://web.archive.org/web/20071107125156/www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/councilservices/bushfireandemergencies/ — I’m sorry if I am missing something but I don’t see any significant difference. Both contain wording like “It should be noted that approvals relating to open burning are not intended to apply to bush fire hazard reduction works, and do not limit a resident’s ability to undertake hazard reduction activities.”
Matt, would you be so kind as to post links to something backing up your claims, because I’ve found nothing. Thanks.
MarcH (15:39:49) :
“The issue is much more complicated than presented by Flannery and Co who would like to blame the extreme weather SOLELY on CO2 emissions”
Ah! yes, even Flannery says:
“In 1790 the First Fleeters experienced the kind of summer that strikes fear into the heart of twentieth-century Australians. Temperatures rose into the forties and the wind blew from the north-west as if out of an oven. The heat was so extreme that birds fell dead into the streets and the europeans succumbed to heat prostration. At one stage a great mob of flying foxes passed by, dropping from the air as they died.
Extract via, PP.15, The Birth of Sydney, Tim Flannery 1999, Text Publishing”
Lets sum up:
Extreme eastern Australian summer weather events reached well into the forties in 1790, 1851 and 2009.
Where’s the global warming?
Living in Australia, I see almost all the comments here as extremely ill-informed.
The Greens have no power in any State, nor Federally. They cannot dictate land-clearing nor determine whether or not to do prescribed burns.
These conspiracy theories are stupid, and are quite offensive. The fires were a terrible tragedy, that were create from a large number of unfortunate conditions.
And comments like this are just stupid
““The issue is much more complicated than presented by Flannery and Co who would like to blame the extreme weather SOLELY on CO2 emissions””
And JBeaty
“Extreme eastern Australian summer weather events reached well into the forties in 1790, 1851 and 2009.”
We get forty degree days almost every year. The difference this year was the length of time. Look at Adelaide, they had 7 days in a row over 40.
To pretend that is not unusual is plain stupid.
Nathan (22:08:31) :
“Living in Australia, I see almost all the comments here as extremely ill-informed”
Sorry we disappoint you. I live in Australia as well, and I find many comments here informative.
“We get forty degree days almost every year. The difference this year was the length of time. Look at Adelaide, they had 7 days in a row over 40.
To pretend that is not unusual is plain stupid”
Have you considered the possibility of UHI skewing recent Adelaide readings?
My posts are directed towards historic contemporary accounts of previous extreme weather events.
Melbourne recording 47 degrees celsius is an unusal event under any circumstances, but it has happened before. We do not know for how long previous extreme events lasted because no extended records were kept. Judging by historic accounts, however, temperature extremes were clearly considerably more than single day events.
I haven’t checked Adelaides historic records yet, but I suspect they will demonstrate that what Adelaide (and south east Australia) experienced recently could well have been matched over timescales longer than the BOM records cover. In particular, 1851.
Why anyone would choose to live (if you can call it living) in Adelaide is beyond me. sarc/off
I encourage all to look at the home video referred to in Roger Sowell (15:16:04) :
How does anyone combat something like this. It is impossible to stop a wildfire with gale force winds and temperature in the 40’s with a very high fuel load comprised of eucalyptus debris. The speed of this fire is staggering, just a couple of minutes from horizon to spot fires on the cleared firebreak,
It is obvious that if there is no fuel we have no fire. So anything we can do to reduce the fuel load must be done and this means regular, systematic hazard reduction based on accurate measurement of fuel loadings.
The news is not good, there appears to be hundreds of people missing, over 2000 homes lost.
jbeatty wants to know where the global warming is. It’s “global”, not at one location. Sure, you can expect that trend on the odd occasion to cause unusually warm temperatures at one place, and for that to happen more often than in the past, but the planet as a whole is not warming uniformly. No one says it is. Look at the maps at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/ and play around with different years. You will see some years it has warmed in some locations, in others cooled at the same locations. We have things like ocean heat transport that distribute the temperature around the planet, and phenomena like La Niña and El Niño that move energy in and out of the sea. Use a straw target and you will hit straw.
Was the Victoria fire a global warming-related event? Possibly. A better answer is that one event is not a climate change event. Rather, a long-term average that is changing is what you need to look for. Good luck with finding one if you are determined to ignore the evidence.
Peter, I quote your comment in full here. You have a voice, you are an individual, and your view is expressed. And sometimes, 99 people out of 100 will not agree with the one lone voice. As for myself, when trying to decide which view is more useful, I don’t bother with counting numbers of people who agree. If 99 people say No and 1 says Yes, that doesn’t matter to me. If it did, I’d never be skeptical of AGW. AGW has a consensus, and AGW supporters have said that it is “irresponsible” to express skeptical views. In other worlds, that the 1 in 100 who disagrees with AGW should stay quiet and not express that view. Well, that argument has never impressed me much because I find that it is not a useful approach. I suppose it is “useful” to the majority, but it is not “useful” to the minority–and it really isn’t useful for better understanding. So you feel you would like to hear the ‘greenie’ view. If so, please express it. I for one am listening. I for one don’t care HOW MANY people express it. If the argument makes useful sense, I hope that I will listen and try to take it on board and come to understand it as you do. It is the internet; everyone can ‘publish’, even individuals. The barrier to entry is very easy. One computer, one internet connection. The rest is free, as in, provided by the owners of these sites. So please express the greenie view. Please add what we are missing. Please illuminate the discussion.
On your last point, you say that on this thread there is, “little enlightening debate about how to live in a tinder dry, extremely flammable environment”, I gather people are saying that the traditionally well established well tried out and well experimented method is to burn off regularly, to keep the forest healthy and more abundant. Is there something you wish to add to this? Or perhaps criticise?
In that case would you equally condemn as lacking compassion and integrity, those who are claiming that this disaster is related to global warming?
So do you happen to know the real reasons why those areas didn’t have fire breaks?
I am confused. If the fire situation is due to global warming, which is certainly, but not only, the mantra of Environmentalist, then in an area where historically drought, Eucalyptus trees and potentially high temperatures are endemic, not managing the fuel content of the land would be suicidal… you would think. Yes? So why then do these Global Warming Environmentalist make it illegal to clear the land? To protect the residents!!!!!
Pamela Gray (20:39:01) :
“We have the same problem here but for opposite reasons. We have rich hippies moving up Lostine Canyon, building fancy log homes amongst tall fir, pine, and tamarack, who REFUSE to cut a firebreak of ANY width.”
Yes, in the summer I live 10 miles farther up the Lostine in the only private property between the “rich hippies” and the end of the road two miles further up.
Just up-canyon from where the “rich hippies” live, no fire break is even possible except on private property because the Canyon has been declared “Wild and Senic”, basically to “save the Salmon” who probably can’t be saved anyway unless the whole drainage reverts to pre-dam conditions for the next 350 miles down to the Pacific, and “managed” so that no standing dead trees can be cut on this kind of National Forest. In dry times, I think I could torch up the whole canyon with one match at the bottom. My []non-electrified] primitive cabin is cleared to about 20-60 yds, depending. But I don’t think even a 100yd. radius would save it.
We probably wouldn’t be allowed to clear the whole property because of the Holy Salmon, etc., and any fire would simply go around it anyway – I’ve thought of constucting such a break on the property so that a large part of the adjacent Wilderness wouldn’t go up in flames along with a Canyon fire, but maybe it’d be better if it did, just not for the Salmon and the other “values” the saviors assert. Yes, the saviors do indeed call things like plants and animals “values”.
Currently the saviors want to close the old logging roads in the County permanently so as to establish “corridors for large predators”, including the Holy Grizzley Bears who aren’t there yet – apparently there aren’t enough of them in Yellowstone and Glacier Nat. Parks to save the World – and return these areas to “pre white” conditions – I’m not kidding. And, of course also to “save the Salmon”, as they must according the tenets of their “Religion of the Holy Salmon”.
As usual, they don’t mention fire breaks.
One thing the “rich hippies” lower down in the Canyon don’t realize is that some of them also live in a flood zone due to the occasional large flash flood/slide which starts higher up on the side of the Canyon under the right moisture conditions and can put a foot of sand and gravel long with a temporary stream right where they are living. Surprise, surprise!
Re: The *GREEN* viewpoint.
Below are two websites of noted greenies in the U.S., the Environmental Defense Fund, (scroll down and look left to *Fighting Deforestation*), and
National Resource Defense Council. Browsing around in these sites is illuminating to the green mindset.
Although based in the U.S., they have a global view.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California
(where we are way below normal temperature for the past week)
?
Why the censoring, you allowed someone to use outrageous language.
More Green thinking on living with Wildfires, a paper titled Safe at Home from NRDC:
http://nrdc.org/land/forests/safe/safe.pdf
This quote is illuminating: “A home cannot burn down unless it is ignited.”
And this, regarding clearing high-fuel material from the forest: (emphasis mine)
“Cutting down trees away from communities—in what is called the “backcountry”—is not a proven method to reduce fire risk to homes and neighborhoods. Forest Service expert Jack Cohen states categorically that backcountry logging “does not effectively change home ignitability.” In 2005, fire scientists found that “fuels treatments have been suggested as a means to limit the size and intensity of wildfires but few experiments are available to analyze the effectiveness of different treatments.” An Interior Department publication noted in 2002 that “scant information exists, however, on the efficacy of fuel treatments for mitigating wildfire severity.” As recently as 2006, a scientific report concluded that “[r]emoving dead trees and other fuels can effectively reduce the risk of fire damage at a local scale, e.g., in the immediate vicinity of a home or community. However, the effectiveness of harvest in reducing fire risk over larger areas, e.g., a forest landscape, is less clear.” A comprehensive survey of the relevant scientific literature also found that backcountry logging was unsubstantiated as a fire reduction technique, stating that “the proposal that commercial logging can reduce the incidence of canopy fire appears completely untested in the scientific literature.”
I do not agree with everything in this paper, just reporting it as some above requested the Green viewpoint.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California
Still awaiting a response from Matt (19:02:45) : “I live in the Blue Mountains”. Sorry, mate. I’ve checked out your story further, and you are a liar. The Greens are not and have never been in control of the Blue Mountains council. As far as I can determine, they are not in control of any level of government on the mainland.
This is the troubling thing about what’s happening in Australia today. Anti-environmental groups have not wasted a second attempting to pin blame on the Greens for the fires, with no shred of evidence to back their case.
It is bad enough that they are doing that before there’s been time to establish the cause (which is most likely a variety of factors: arson, high temperatures, high winds, prolonged drought — plus others that I won’t list here because they should be subject to investigation). It’s worse that a number of these people are prepared to use deliberate lies.
Fighting your personal cause by using emotive arguments spiced with untruths at the expense of victims of a major disaster is repulsive in the extreme.
If you want to know the Greens position on a subject, look for an original source. There is no way of preventing deliberate lies from being posted on a site like this, moderation or not. Even reading a newspaper is not that safe: many do not have a culture of fact checking.
Philip Machanick (03:37:35) :
“Look at the maps at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/ and play around with different years. You will see some years it has warmed in some locations, in others cooled at the same locations”
You can do even better than that with GISS data.
Sometimes even previous years warm or cool as “adjustments” are made.
Alarmists in Australia are blaming last week on global warming/climate change
I have provided evidence that similar extreme temperature events to last weeks disaster have repeated over a 200 year timescale in Australia, and the best you can offer me is Jim Hansons thermometer?
Hi Matt
As one of the Greens Councillors on Blue Mountains City Council, I have to dispute a couple of things in your post. But firstly, I believe that this is not the time to be casting around for people to blame for such awful events, as the fires in Victoria. There will be a Royal Commission and I look forward to learning any and all lessons about managing such extreme fires that come from the inquiries.
You said that: “Until recently the local Green party had control of the local council and had in place laws prohibiting back burning, clearing of bush for fire breaks and the removal of trees and brush from properties.”
That is not a correct statement. Before the last Council elections, the Greens had 2 Councillors out of 12, and were rarely supported by the other Councillors. After the elections, there are now 3 Greens Councillors, and more independents. Neither of these scenarios point to the Greens having control.
The majority of the Blue Mountains is under the management of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, not the Council. However, the Council is responsible for developments occurring in the area and there are restrictions about building in bushfire prone areas. These are taken very seriously by both Councillors and staff.
The Council will be discussing the fires at our meeting on Tuesday night, so I encourage you to attend. I met with one of our local Rural Fire Services last week and discussions are ongoing about what we can do in the future.
There’s a link on our NSW website to more detailed information about what the Greens’ policies are.
http://nsw.greens.org.au/the-victorian-bushfires
El Gibbs
The Rural Fire Service Association has leading global warming advocate Tim Flannery addressing its June conference. http://www.wildfiremanagement09.com/program.asp#keynote
So-o, does the Fire Service itself wish to blame global warming, and legitamise its ecoGreen policies? No doubt they will invite a skeptic as well, just for balance. Not.
REPLY: if there in any place for public venting, that should be it. Perhaps a protest should be formed. Flannery has done quite a bit of damage and should be called on it. – Anthony
tamino tried to explain the fires downunder with the help of the melbourne temperature trend.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/fire-down-below/#comment-28605
the melbourne weather station is well known here (how not to measure temperature part 33) for it’s extremely poor siting.
i was positively surprised that i was allowed to post a link to mcleans uhi evaluation of the melbourne site.
however, my followup below was not allowed. “open mind” appears only to allow critical remarks, if they think to have some clever response.
obviously, there was no clever response for this:
———————————————
I think we are talking about different things right now:
McLean was referencing the data from 1950-1990.
He showed an uhi related increase of the melbourne data of approx. 0.7° only during this time (on top of the uhi increase of the reference stations).
http://mclean.ch/climate/Melbourne_UHI.htm
The Melbourne station is located in the mddle of one of the busiest streets in australia:
Enter this in google maps : La Trobe St 2, Melbourne
So the melbourne data may have not been the best idea to start this blog discussion in the first posting.
@Philippe Chantreau // February 14, 2009 at 12:22 am
you are refering to climate data after 1990.and the local upward trend after approx. 1993. this local trend has to be put into perspective with with the all-australian trend. Simply spoken, as the all-australian trend was upwards for decades, melbourne had to follow at some point in time.
However, local trends (like melbourne and all-australia) have to be investigated first for uhi, local land use, ocean currents and other issues. Following mclean, the all-australian upward trend in the last decades was due to the change in ocean currents after 1976.
http://mclean.ch/climate/Aust_temps_alt_view.pdf
leftymartin (19:55:10) : wrote:
“Good for Mr. Sheahan. He has undoubtedly had enough of the court system, but wouldn’t if be wonderful if he speerheaded a class action lawsuit against the governments who enacted these idiotic regulations, and against the various greenie organizations who pressure for such laws.”
if a government is found guilty, it the taxpayer who has to pay the bill in the end. that is not very satisfactory and not helpful to do it better in the future.
I would prefer to look for personal responsibility, such as of “greenies” in the green party or in labour party or elsewhere, who didn’t allow or sabotaged fire prevention despite experts told them to do so.
El Gibbs,
firstly, don’t you think it might be more prudent for council to wait until after the Royal Commission to discuss the fires rather than Tuesday? Someone might slip & blame something.
You maintain there is no green influence on policy making because there have been only 2-3 greens councilors over the last couple of terms. This is not a correct assertion.
Do small blocks come to have influence & receive policy concessions & hand outs far beyond their importance or usefulness in Australian politics? Must we examine the mechanism through which Rudd’s package was just passed? Or similar deals in our home state, NSW, let alone the administrative mechanisms through which local council organisations mold policy?
I am sure you will find that it is not only council that takes council building & development restrictions seriously. Rate-payers feel very seriously about them too. If only you knew. Now, you are hearing just some of it, on one subject, yet the response is obfuscation.
Lastly, you link to your political party & within that link there it is, blaming climate change for the conditions. Politicising the fires, so to speak. So, no thank you – in state I always vote NSW Shooter’s Party.
“a class action lawsuit”
I’d go for manslaughter. It must be a criminal act (whether or not it’s on the statute book) to enforce legislation that actively endangers life and property. I’m surprised the insurance companies don’t have a say in the matter.
Planting apocalyptus trees doesn’t sound too bright, either… 🙂