Back in 2019, a California state climate task force issued a stark warning: Endless development in the state’s high-risk wildfire zones was magnifying wildfires and putting more people in their path. 

It was a call that has echoed in the state for decades from environmentalists, urban planners, and policymakers, even as developers pushed to build ever more homes in zones designated as “very high risk” of wildfires. 

Now, many of those homes have burned to the ground.