Disappointing week, past. How many March weeks have we now had? 2020
The rain "suggested," was a " washout." Oh, there is a poor choice of words. Tuesday's rain was cancelled. Saturday's rain was several drops on the pickup in the driveway - just enough to leave some marks in the ash from the wildfires.
Wild, since they have repeatedly burned into residential areas, does that make them more wild or more domestic?
The new US Forest Service chief said early that some fires should just burn themselves out. Sure. Maybe it it doesn't require evacuating a town of 17,000 people, allowing them to camp in their cars on asphalt parking lots in 100° temperatures because there are fires along all highways leading out of the county. Helicopter out? Sure.
"In April U.S. Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen ordered a new strategy for fighting wildfires in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus. That strategy included a renewed focus on using local firefighting crews and a strategy of rapid containment ... "
UPI
Works just super ... except that the USFS and the locals are trying to contain fires in weather of record heat and drought while containing a virus outbreak that has killed 200,000 and sickened millions. An entire management team was pulled off one fire recently because one of them was sick and the others require weeks in quarantine. While fires spread by the minute ... Acres of every kind of environment by the tens of thousands ...
We read that Congress was unwilling to act during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression until dust clouds blew into Washington DC. The city recently had clouds of smoke from western fires blow in ... But, they weren't around for long before the remains of a Gulf Coast hurricane showed up to carry them out into the Atlantic -- fortunately for leadership.
Steve
thehill.com
