IMHO I doubt the fires were housing related, but trying to use logical arguments to refute bad RE as a cause is kinda ironic. Pointing out that the insurance money won’t save you is probably lost on people that are in deep housing trouble since they already proved to lack any sense when they bought a house.
For their sake, I hope nobody torched their house for money. Given the deaths involved and national attention, I doubt any intentional fires will go unsolved. Murder two is a tad worse than BK.
Anyways,
An excellent source for fire info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_wildfires_of_October_2007
