dupe post, sry
@Happytimes2001 I had an opportunity to move to Florida. Decided not to because of the hurricanes. Evacuating and coming back to a destroyed home didn’t sound like fun at all. Yeah, California does get fires and earthquakes, but then again a lot of places get natural disasters and I’d rather deal with fires and earthquakes then tornados and hurricanes…
@natty1988 So true. Funny how sometimes the most beautiful places on earth are subject to the worst storms and weather.
@Happytimes2001 yes! Maybe we’re not supposed to live in the most beautiful places! A childhood friend of my sister and I lives in Honolulu and she has a friend who lives on the big island who had to be evacuated when one of the volcanoes erupted…always something!
The main thing we have to deal with in Maine is snowstorms, and I love those. 
Hurricane Bob was the last big threat, in 1991, but it turned out to not be a big deal at all.
How many hours of the day do you get sunlight in Maine or is that Alaska? :lol:
My biggest fear of Maine is actually the huge mosquitoes in the summer.
I have been in Norcal for 21 years now and can’t wait to get out (gotta get those kids off to college first). We can afford it here comfortably, but good lord the traffic, the dry hot summers, and tech mono-culture are wearing me out. I am definitely looking forward to moving to Portland, Oregon. Yes, they have issues there too but on a smaller scale. And there’s trees! (My friend just relocated to Portland Maine and loves it there!)
My husband commutes to CA for work regularly. I keep asking whether he wants to move there… every time I ask, the answer is a solid “NO.” We can afford the move, but why?!
Trees are the number one reason I stay in California. Portland is a great place and I could easily imagine living there, but they have no redwoods.
Man I love the Redwoods. The ones just over the Oregon border are also very nice @“Cardinal Fang”
Coastal southern Oregon, where the redwoods are, is lovely. But remote. So remote. I was doing a bike ride in that area, a supported ride, and on one of the days we went from Gold Beach, about 30 miles north of the California border on the coast, to Indian Mary Park, near Grants Pass, Oregon. We went 70 miles, but the route we rode was not suitable for the support trucks, or, really, for any car. The quickest car route from Gold Beach to Galice is 140 miles and requires detouring through California.
(Also southern coastal Oregon is due to be swamped by a huge tsunami. So there’s that.)
Also if you’re looking to get away from fires, coastal southern Oregon, where the redwoods are, should not be your choice. Two years ago the Chetco Bar fire burned 200,000 acres. It started July 12, wasn’t declared fully contained until Nov. 4. The southern coast was blanketed with smoke for weeks during August.
I have Redwood trees (and others) in my backyard. So there! 
Those California fires could change that 
I’m not located anywhere near the “California fires.” But I’ll be out there in my backyard with the hose just in case. Plus, we have a wonderful local fire department too.
A redwood tree does not a redwood forest make.
Most year, mosquitoes aren’t that bad in Maine. This past summer was the exception, ack.
On the shortest day of the year, sunrise in our southern Maine town is at 7:12 am and sunset is at 4:06 pm.
By contrast, sunrise in Anchorage, Alaska is at 10:14 am and sunset is at 3:41 am. I would go nuts.
In Austin, where I grew up, sunrise is at 7:23 am and sunset is at 5:35 pm.
Avoid the entire west! Certainly CA and Oregon are not the only western states that burn regularly. On my trip west last summer I drove through/by/around several in Utah and Idaho, and Oregon.
CA may have more population near those fires though.