Politics is allocation of resources

Politics is the allocation of resources, the process by which we allow for the exploitation of open space, water, and timber. Politics allows for the construction of infrastructure. Risk allocation is a financial infrastructure like bonds that links currency and commodities. Hard infrastructures include roads, sewer systems, septics, etc. Policy balances infrastructure against the needs of the exploiter, exploited, and those caught in between.

Writing for the Associated Press Sue Major Homes points out that the western fire season is longer because we are building in fire prone areas like wilderness. So instead of fixing the problem and not insuring, building or charging more for roads and water and sewer to wilderness "Officials predict a longer fire season."

Check out the levels of allocation that occur with the fire season in Homes' AP writeup:

"What's at risk determines who gets what resources.

Top priority goes to fires with the potential to harm human life, Nieto said. Second, fire managers need to keep enough reserves home to tackle new fires and get them out before they grow. Lastly, they consider the possibility a fire could destroy such things as major power lines, critical communication sites, cultural resources or special habitat.

The priorities sometimes prompt federal land managers to fight a smaller fire and send fewer resources to a larger one."

Worse as mentioned earlier with the sewer rate in Belmont, we tend to build for the largest users and charge the smaller users to implement a public bad. Because of political graft we end up having resource access wars instead of solutions.