In the competition between rural and urban for resources, this pretty much sums it up

The media (Sac Bee and New York Times) have given lots of attention in recent days to the just-revealed cause of the Ranch Fire, one of the fires in the Mendocino Complex that led to the largest wildfire in California's history last summer.  The fire burned through chunks of Lake, Mendocino, and Colusa counties in late summer 2018, destroying more than 150 homes.  Fighting it cost "tens of millions of dollars."  Here's an excerpt (from the NYT story) about the fire generally:

The fire burned 410,203 acres of California wild lands, an area half the size of Rhode Island, and killed a firefighter who was struck by a falling tree. Although it was one of the largest fires, it was far from the deadliest. The fire in Paradise, Calif., in fall 2018 killed more than 80 people.

There's a lot of "rural" in the story, especially if you associate buried wasps nests with rurality, but it was this quote from Jill Cowan, writing in today's New York Times California newsletter, that really caught my eye re rural-urban difference and--more precisely--urban primacy.  Cowan quotes a neighbor (Ms. Parker) of the man who inadvertently started the Ranch fire.  She lives along Highway 20 between Ukiah and Upper Lake: 

Ms. Parker shrugged as she described how Caltrans allows vegetation to proliferate along the side of the highway in front of her house.  

“We are in a rural area,” she said. “Cities are always going to come first.”

By the way, the dateline for the NYTimes story is Potter Valley, population 646.  (I passed near there and took some photos along this stretch of Highway 20 in early July, 2018, a few weeks before that fire).  And the photo caption for the NYT story mentions Ladoga, population 197 (in Colusa County).

As for urban primacy in pretty much all things, see a related post here.