What did Jerry Brown say about Calif. fires yesterday? [View All]

[Sapphocrat]

I was told about a sound bite in which Oakland mayor and ex-guv Jerry Brown stated yesterday that, while he felt concern for the victims of the Southern California fires, the hard truth is that when you decide to live in the wildnerness, fire is one of the dangers you have to accept... and that before humans began encroaching on nature, we would not have been so desperate to fight such fires -- that the real reason we're fighting these fires is to save people's homes, and not because fires are a threat to nature. And, on the contrary, fires are necessary; i.e., nature's way of cleaning things up.

Did anybody see/hear this sound bite? I'm looking for a published link, but nothing comes up. (And I really want to know his exact words -- I'm blogging as I write this, damning the Bush admin's screw-you attitude toward Gray Davis' request for funding.)

P.S. As coldhearted as it may sound, I agree with Jerry. If a fire starts on its own (i.e., not by arson), it's natural -- it's nature. I was heartbroken to watch large chunks of Yellowstone (and God knows how much wildlife) go up in flames some years ago, but the truth is, if we did not expend so much effort trying to prevent natural forest fires for the primary sake of protecting human habitat, the build-up of dead, dry materials would not accumulate to the point that when a fire does break out, it breaks out with such vengeance.

Remember the tagline for that old TV commercial: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."