Readers respond to Question of the Week: Is the fire this time a different inferno?

Yes, we lack leadership

Are the people of this state a priority? Have we become a third world republic? The question to ask is are we continuing to sing from the same hymnal? Over decades, Californians have voted for the conditions and results we experience today. Regular voting levels continue to be extremely low indicating that many are prepared to let our local and state policies continue on cruise control. We cannot dictate to nature the conditions we experience but we can take on meaningful uncompromised policy commitments to prepare for expected repeating conditions. The state must establish the necessary repeating priority policies and financial commitments to minimize the deadly results we experience. This includes land management, water collection and storage, prevention policies, budgeting, fire ighting professionals and equipment. We must also vote for leaders who are competent, responsible public servants, not place holders. Today we lack leadership.

— Anthony Mazeika, Mission Viejo

We pay the dues

Catastrophies are the dues we must pay for living on this planet. In days of yore, floods, tsunamis, huge earthquakes, great planes and Siberian-sized forest fires occasionally claimed casualties approaching 1 million human beings. Today’s current catastrophes, though still considered significant, are a huge inconvenience, somewhat mitigated as we have the ability to respond (fire-rescue teams, National Guard units, insurance indemnification, hospital crisis units). However, future earthquakes exceeding 9-plus, the occasional meteor, upsized tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, fires and floods will in all probability not have much regard for our current communication skills upon which we so heavily depend. Keep your fingers crossed.

— John R. Waters, Lake Forest

SoCal fires

There will likely be plenty of blame assigned to those in charge, but the bottom line is that California needs to anticipate the Santa Ana wind conditions and have everything in place to prevent another horrific fire. Smokey the Bear’s admonition, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” is a lesson that California should have learned.

— Robert Snyder, Laguna Hills