Say the words “Malibu hills” and most Americans think of movie star mansions, or the carefree surf culture that reigned there in the early 1960s. Few would associate those lovely wooded hills with a nightmare conflagration. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened in October when a large area of Southern California was struck by wildfires.

While this seemingly natural catastrophe actually resulted from the hands of a juvenile arsonist, the devastation was anything but minor. According to www.cnn.com/us, the fires are blamed for 14 deaths and the destruction of more than 508,000 acres and1,600 homes. The wildfires forced the ...