Fires!

Hiya Jim,

This is the price we pay for doing the Smokey "thing" and preventing naturally occuring fires.  Here in Oregon we have been so successful in preventing fires or controlling fires once they do get started that we have a superabundance of fuel laying around out there just ready for the right conditions to burn like crazy.  Fires that burn out undergrowth, snags, and infested trees are a natural phenomena.  But these fires have little or no place in the human equation.  So, preventing semi-regular smaller fires just leads up (eventually) to a whopper of a big fire.  And you are dead-on concerning the added undesireable effects of a warmer and drier climate.

These fires that start in mountainous terrain, whether grassland or forest are particularly dangerous.  The bigger fires create their own weather and wind patterns, in effect making a natural (or unnnatural depending on how you look at it) furnace.  That and the mountains make them very difficult to fight let alone contain.  Regrettably, more of this sort of fire is in our future unless we start looking differently at smaller fires.

Ditto.

                                                  burrhead

In our section of BC we had the hottest and driest summer in record.
We had the hot spot in Canada for a couple of days at +41.5*C.
Then we got the lighting and thunder storm usually we count the seconds from the flash to the boom to tell how far away the strike was, one was less than one second away.
The fire started right behind a friend house half way up the mountain and grew fast in size.
Next day water bombers and helicopters and ground crews fought it.
My friend and I hooked up a gravity feed 2" line from one of the creeks to his property just to wet everything down.
The fire was on the other side of the valley from us and we had the perfect viewing spot.
We felt almost safe where we live but with the river chewing away at our property behind us and the fire blazing in the front things seemed a little like we had problems all around us.
I just stayed in the shop and managed to get some of the work done.
The rains came and cooled things down, but 80 Km. up in the plateau a huge fire is still burning up the beetle kill pine and spruce trees.
Very smokey up there and our road is closed in and out with one opening at 0800
We kept watering our gardens and fruit trees and it looks like we will have the best harvest thanks to all the hot weather and sunshine.
be safe Jim
best wishes
hank

Jim: We have the smoke from the California fires here in Colorado giving us brilliant orange sunrises and sunsets. Early this morning I could also detect the faint smell of the fires. Maybe the hurricane Jimena down by Baja will give southern California some needed relief.

Stay indoors. Breathing that stuff can't be good for you.....

Clancy

Sorry I missed this Post Jame's !!
  What a Bunch of Sissy Boy's Cough , Cough ,for 3 week's Here in So Cal We have had Smoke and heavy Ash dependin on wich direction the wind blow's !
  Year after Year after Year , too the Point it's not even a Talking point anymore !
  Except we lost a Fire Capt this time from Oak Hill's Very Sadd !
  Im Use to it in fact if I didnt have ash and smoke to breathe everyday I might start panickin like a fish out of water ???
  Badd thing here is it's the second year !! Im convinced that some one or maybe Copy Catt Fire Bugg is lightin them !
  New's here has flirted with the Idea few time's that we have a Fire Bugg Possibly !! But for most part I would Say there down playing it , for Reason's I can only guess at ???
  As long as the wind blow's right direction we do get some releif ! It quit's blowin tho and ash has fallen pretty heavy here few time's !
  Boy gott sick with Flu we took him in they give us a pretty heavy regiment of Anti Biotic's for Him !! But air has gotton better this last week ! Boy is up and about doin good but still has badd cough ?
  Were just use to it !! Fast becomeing a way of Life here in So Cal !!
                                                      Sean

How true this is. It is easy to have an opinion when you are a fair distance away.
So are the  BC fires out or under containment?