While wildfires have been around since the beginning of time, our encroachment into forested areas and dry locations such as southern California requires mitigation to reduce loss of lives and property damage. The most impactful thing I see the communities and individual owners do is vegetation management. There are multiple ways to fight overgrowth of vegetation; prescribed burning, chemical treatments, and mechanical treatments (San Diego County Wildland Fire Task Force Findings and Recommendations, 2003). According to Keeley, Fotheringham & Moritz (2004), “fire suppression policy has been very effective at excluding fires from these forests” (pg. 27). When fires do break through these measures other mitigation strategies can further
