Many of the comments were ill-timed and inappropriate when so many people were suffering so much during the recent siege of western wildfires. The victims of the raging blazes, some of them results of arson, were suffering enough without being tagged for making poor decisions.

What some observers were pointing out was that when people keep building and residing in areas where fires, mudslides, landslides, earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding are ongoing perils, they have to deal with reality. That is, you take the risk, you have to realize potential consequences. And they were dead-on.

That’s cruel rhetoric for those who had their homes, businesses and belongings wiped out by the wildfires. But it is something everyone should ponder before rebuilding in hazardous locales such as the scenic and enchanting coastal regions of California.

The recent tragedies of Hurricane Katrina to our south were far beyond what anyone could imagine, and there must be some rebuilding of the region. But redevelopment of some flood-prone areas should be considered carefully. If residents choose to rebuild, all well and good. But they need to take into account what they are facing.

California is noted for the wide range of natural disasters its geography can foment. Residents, however, seem to have learned how to live with various threats, even The Big One, a massive earthquake that some consider inevitable.

It’s the same thing that people in other areas such as Florida, Georgia and Mississippi have to consider when hurricane forecasts are pondered. People suffer but keep going back. Some are leaving after Katrina, but others seem determined to make another attempt to inhabit the region. In Kansas, of course, there are always windstorms and tornadoes to cope with along with flooding. But such disasters are by no means as inevitable as wildfires, landslides, hurricanes and such.

Early warnings allow people to take shelter from a tornado, but there is no hiding place from a hurricane or wildfire and this is something those who would return to ravaged areas have to keep in mind. But hope springs eternal for many and that has made California the golden state it is. Consider these recent remarks by Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large of American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly:

“Half a century ago, Californians understood what it took to create a great state. Taxpayers funded the nation’s best highway network, water system and public universities. The state’s population exploded in the greatest home-construction boom in history, under a system of mortgages that the government tightly regulated. A sustainable California will require a return to the polices of public investment and financial regulation that built the postwar paradise between the Sierras and the sea.”

So we can be sure people will go back to the wildfire areas, if not the same people, others. Though they will be warned about the risk, most of them will shrug it off.

Attractive land areas have a tantalizing way of fostering such a philosophy that entails the belief that others, but not I, might get hit.