Well, this devolved into something.
The weekend's event was an attempt at providing the server with a larger scale event that allowed several agencies and civilians to be involved in a type of roleplay that, while not common, it an intrinsic part of California and other areas of the World with a similar climate. Wildfires happen. Wildfires are common. Wildfires are part of nature even if the consequences of said events can result in tragedy.
To be noted the following:
- Only two unused lonely buildings in the middle of the woods burned;
- Paleto was mostly safe;
- Temporary evacuation was due to air quality;
- Power was shut as precautionary measure;
If you look at the consequences of this event and its actual size, it doesn't go past what emergency agencies IRL consider a minor fire. Even the number of vehicles and personnel doesn't go part a certain limit because that's the nature of the server and limited staff. In fact, the number of fires you can spawn is very limited, so those who went there would know that it doesn't really have that overwhelming scope of normal wildfires.
That said, I'm fairly certain not a single person here isn't sympathetic to events in the US, but the event began long before any alarms were sounding and before any victim tally was known. With this in mind, it is important to remember that the two events aren't remotely related in type, scope or consequences. To accuse people of poor taste, being uncaring or overall trying to justify persecution of what was really a minor ingame event with little consequences because of a totally unrelated situation IRL just isn't fair on anyone.
If people do wish to start cancelling things based on sensibilities, then we'll soon end up in a stale server. I'd say there's a limit. This was a minor wildfire without great consequences, not a hurricane. Comparing both is a long stretch.