Ok....so I have been busy. A dry year means fires, and I have been dipping into that bottomless pit of gold for a couple months now, along with my regular gig. Frankly, I am sick of defending monied idiocy from its own stupidity. I will give you a quick source, though there are many more: Roger G. Kennedy's " Wildfire and Americans: How to Save Lives, Property and your Tax Dollars". Read it, get angry and weep. No, I haven't been up north at Cavity Lake. I've been working locally, defending the world from canary grass fires and ramshackle farms. Mostly I've been sitting on my butt. Waiting. All this is justified in the Billions of tax dollars spent by numerous local, state and federal agencies protecting those who have chosen to move into fire traps, encouraged by insane land policies, transportation systems and the most unholy and useless creature to ever walk the earth, the real estate developer.

There is one reason over 500 people have been fighting the fire at Cavity lake to the tune of over 5 million dollars. It is not to save us from a catastrophe. It is to save rich property owners of the Gunflint. They are not being charged one extra red cent for this largesse...they can claim their property taxes are paying it, but it comes nowhere close to what has been spent the last 7 years in stationing aircraft, crews, prescribed burn operations and the administration of the entire affair, which easily runs into the eight digits in terms of cost. You, the taxpayers of other places, the hardworking stiffs, are paying so these very wealthy people can build their million dollar boondoggles in one of the most fire-prone regions in North America.


And we encourage people to do this. We say it is ok. And this is true throughout America; witness the insanity of southern California or Arizona.

I have witnessed one occasion where a property owner became angered over our resistance to engage a fire to save a chicken coop surrounded by 8 foot tall canary grass, We were supposed to heroically endanger ourselves to save this hut from the owners' stupidity.


I have simple solution: bill people for the cost of protection. For the next ten years, all property owners on the west side of the Gunflint shall pay their fair share at tax time. If you have a mansion on Seagull lake, you get a monster. All 7 years of costs since the 1999 blowdown shall be recouped. Your bill is a cool million. A small shack, your bill is smaller.

I am sick of sucking soot for these wealthy spoilt morons. Let their property burn.