California is passing a Fire Tax of $150 per house to cover both increased costs of fighting fires and the cost of greater effort to save homes during forest or in my case, scrub land fires. I assume they looked at the big loss of tax revenue from homes destroyed by fires that the state could no longer collect property taxes from, and decided a greater effort to save those home was a good idea.

I’m sure the homeowners agree, I know I certainly do. The tax levied is actually $150 per home, but if you live in an area with an existing fire department, or in a fire district, in other words, $35 is knocked off that. The full $150 is for those who live beyond fire districts where the fire-fighting equipment is a long way off and it’s more costly to fight the fire.

Like the fire that flared up just the other side of the hill from my home, yesterday. It’s a good thing there’s a lake nearby, as 3 helicopters were busy all day long dumping water on it. I’m not fully familiar with the area here yet, but from the view I had of that hillside from a trip into town, there looked to be no roads in there at all. Way too rugged and steep.

If the fire had topped the hill, it would likely have come down the hill to us. So for $115 a year, that’s pretty cheap fire insurance considering all the fires that burn in the California hills every year, especially out here. I’m happy to pay it. Some taxes are easy to swallow.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2012 at 6:02 am and is filed under Bleats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.