Fires Are the Sum of Our Choices

In early February, the deadliest South American wildfires in a century swept through Valparaiso, Chile, killing more than a hundred people. It was almost six months to the day since the deadliest American fires in a century killed a hundred people when flames tore through Lahaina, in Maui, burning up much of Hawaii’s precolonial capital and forcing local residents to jump into the ocean for safety, the flames…