The Forest Service wants to do controlled burns, but don’t have the staff or funding, meaning more forest is vulnerable to fires. Wildfires are important to maintain forest diversity, but it’s safer for us if we can make them more predictable.
Climate change has created more extremes – longer, more severe droughts, for example, which make fires generally more likely over a larger area.
And more development in marginal areas means that, as guyjen2004 noted, more people are affected.
My little village here in New Mexico, has a Forest Service Fire Danger indicator that has a pointer rusted stuck on “Extreme” because nothing’s changed in the past several years – it just keeps getting worse and worse.
There IS a certain amount of resistance to “controlled burns” ,here in the state since the “controlled burn” several years ago outside of los Alamos (you know, the place where the atomic bomb was born and where ALL the detritus from that little adventure in better living through chemistry is stored and buried!)
Long story short, THAT controlled burn almost wiped out half the town – and I know all this because my mother-in-law had to be evacuated from her home for a while – and I have friends in the AEC that were running around the surrounding states for months with “geiger” counters, testing the air, making sure that “Los Alamos” stayed in “Los Alamos”! though WHAT they would have done if “it” hadn’t was unclear. My friends never told me what they found in Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma – secrecy, you know. I think crews went into Texas, as well, but, bottom line, New Mexico doesn’t “give a sh*t” about what happened to Texas, so I never asked.
Lyman Elliott Premium Member over 5 years ago
Both?
Masterskrain Premium Member over 5 years ago
So, who spelled it for him?
Radish the wordsmith over 5 years ago
Was it always that way or are things changing?
lopaka over 5 years ago
Grab a rake everybody. Snerk
Motivemagus over 5 years ago
@Radish: it is changing, in several ways:
The Forest Service wants to do controlled burns, but don’t have the staff or funding, meaning more forest is vulnerable to fires. Wildfires are important to maintain forest diversity, but it’s safer for us if we can make them more predictable.
Climate change has created more extremes – longer, more severe droughts, for example, which make fires generally more likely over a larger area.
And more development in marginal areas means that, as guyjen2004 noted, more people are affected.
Radish the wordsmith over 5 years ago
We tilted the balance of nature and now we have to deal with the results.
wellis1947 Premium Member over 5 years ago
My little village here in New Mexico, has a Forest Service Fire Danger indicator that has a pointer rusted stuck on “Extreme” because nothing’s changed in the past several years – it just keeps getting worse and worse.
There IS a certain amount of resistance to “controlled burns” ,here in the state since the “controlled burn” several years ago outside of los Alamos (you know, the place where the atomic bomb was born and where ALL the detritus from that little adventure in better living through chemistry is stored and buried!)
Long story short, THAT controlled burn almost wiped out half the town – and I know all this because my mother-in-law had to be evacuated from her home for a while – and I have friends in the AEC that were running around the surrounding states for months with “geiger” counters, testing the air, making sure that “Los Alamos” stayed in “Los Alamos”! though WHAT they would have done if “it” hadn’t was unclear. My friends never told me what they found in Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma – secrecy, you know. I think crews went into Texas, as well, but, bottom line, New Mexico doesn’t “give a sh*t” about what happened to Texas, so I never asked.
Concretionist over 5 years ago
I wonder if its Freudian or what: The first thing I thought of was (automatic) weapons firing.
squiggle9 over 5 years ago
change is the ONLY thing we can ALWAYS count on