You’re Fired!

“There’s just a lot of stuff to burn”

Janean Creighton, an associate professor of forest ecosystems and society at Oregon State University.

It’s really hard to watch Americans - Texans, Puerto Ricans and Floridians (and some neighboring states) - struggle with the unparalleled disruption and damage, the injuries and loss of life, from mega-storms that were intensified by some of the warmest sea surface temperatures in recorded memory. Just a couple of degrees over the years, which fueled these swirling monsters with hurricane “food”: hot rising moisture. I’ve been emailing my friends scattered across these pummeled regions, and most of them are OK. I have been glued to the images of areas flood and decimated… where I know my friends live.

With an estimated quarter of all homes in the Keys destroyed and sixty percent experiencing serious damage, my mind cannot help but visualize the slow but steady (inevitable) flooding of all of southern Florida, a permanent loss of heavily urbanized land mass the likes of which modern man has never witnessed. South Florida’s coastal streets hardly require a hurricane or even a major tropical storm to flood these days; it’s the new normal.

For poorer Caribbean nations, hit by these hurricanes, lacking decent building codes, sustainable infrastructure or the money to rebuild on any timeline that we might think reasonable, the death and destruction are truly even more horrible. The imagery from those nations is awful.

Out west, that heat has had a different impact. We’ve faced new levels of sustained, long-term drought, water rationing, thousands and thousands of square miles of once productive farmland wither up and blow away in a water-controlled, water-impaired wasteland. The West Coast got a breather – or so we thought – with unseasonably heavy rains this last fall and winter. Reservoirs filled up and a number of regional lakes sprang back to life. Good news for the biggest vegetable producing region in America… and for consumers across the land. But would it last?

Then spring and the summer marched in as much of that precipitation, stored in our mountainous ice packs, began melting too fast in the rapidly warming seasons. Floods exploded, dams failed and the damage rose to record levels. It was miserable for those communities slammed with death and destruction. About 188,000 local residents were evacuated, feeling the wrath of a collapsed Oroville Dam in Northern California. As Coyote Creek breached its banks, tech-city San Jose experienced flooding that the residents had only ever witnessed on television.

And then the summer continued. Temperatures soared. Even mild-climate-Portland Oregon, where air conditioning is hardly required, experienced days where temperatures reached and held 109 degrees for days. The hot days increased everywhere in the western United States. The increase in wildfires over the past decade plus had been rising in direct proportion to the rise in global temperatures. With those lovely rains, folks hoped that these fires would subside. Instead, searing summer temperatures broke new records. Much of that growth spurred by those rains dried up and resumed its role as kindling. The fire season was back… with a vengeance. We are still adding up the damage – and by no means is the ever-extending fire season over for 2017 – but we seem destined for an unenviable record. The west is now hot, hot, hot and dry, dry, dry… again

The September 12^th Los Angeles Times has delved into these burning horrors, pretty much ignored by the rest of the country in the wake of the rapid assault of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma (emphasis added): “Billows of thick black smoke and red-hot flames have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres in Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California and Utah… More than 24,000 firefighters have been battling 137 blazes, some for as long as six months, leaving experts shocked at the scale and duration.

“‘Typically by the third week of September we see not as much fire activity,’ said Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center. ‘But we just haven’t had that relief.’… The blazes have been responsible for the deaths of eight firefighters and have destroyed more than 500 homes. So far in fiscal year 2017, the Forest Service has spent $1.75 billion fighting fires; as of Sept. 1, the U.S. Interior Department has spent more than $391 million…. ‘Because fire season has been so lengthy we have to be strategic…. We have been stretched thin on resources,’ Gardetto said.

“What makes the fires burning across the West so extreme?... One aspect that sets this year apart is the length of time the fire season has lasted, in part because of dry air, conducive for sustaining wildfires… Lightning strikes in Oregon and Washington have sparked many of the wildfires still ravaging large swaths of land, while drought-stricken Montana continues to battle several big fires.

“‘We didn’t think we were going to have large-scale wildfires like this in high elevation because of all the significant amount of snowpack. Fire season ended up being much more above normal than a lot of us had predicted,’ Gardetto said… [Here is a quick summary of the western states facing the worst fires:]

“Montana… According to the National Interagency Fire Center, firefighters in Montana are currently battling 25 large fires that threaten lives and homes… Heat and wind across much of the state have created an exceptionally dangerous fire season. Compounding the situation is a severe drought.

At least 12 counties in Montana are battling intense blazes, and two firefighters have died. Because the threat of wildfires remains high, people in all of western Montana are not allowed to have campfires… Gov. Steve Bullock had already declared a state of emergency at the end of July because of the wildfires, but he declared a new fire emergency in mid-August…

“Oregon… The fires in Oregon, along with the fires in Washington, have burned more than 739,000 acres. The state is currently battling 17 large fires… The largest fire in [in Oregon’s history, a state that accounts for almost a third of the nation’s “scorched forest” fires], which was started by a lightning strike, is the Chetco Bar fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, which has consumed more than 182,000 acres. More than 1,000 people have been deployed to fight the fire, and officials don’t expect it to be contained until mid-October. [The Trump administration denied blue state Oregon’s request for additional federal help to battle the Chetco fire.]…

“Idaho… The Bearskin fire in the Boise National Forest is one of four large wildfires plaguing Idaho. Caused by lightning strikes near the town of Lowman, the fire has burned more than 28,000 acres and has led to hiking trail and campground closures…

“California… Despite record rainfall and snowpack this year, experts said the long, hot summer had brewed unrelenting wildfires all across the state… More than 20,000 firefighters are battling 20 active wildfires, eight of them especially large, in several parts of the state.

“Blazes in Northern California that threatened homes and endangered lives led Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in Madera, Mariposa and Tulare counties… The Helena fire in Trinity County has burned more than 20,000 acres and destroyed 72 homes. The cause is still under investigation. The Salmon August Complex fire, near Etna, has burned more than 65,000 acres.

“The La Tuna fire in early September grew rapidly because of high winds, its flames glowing brilliantly in the night sky as people drove past in the [suburban Los Angeles residential community of] Sunland-Tujunga… The fire prompted mandatory evacuations for residents in the Brace Canyon Park area of Burbank and burned more than 7,000 acres before it was contained.”

In terms of sheer acreage, 2017 isn’t the worst; but if you factor in the human toll, it’s just might be.  But with vastly more human suffering, death and urban destruction from hurricanes, it’s hard to get America’s attention on what’s really happening “out West.” “Still, at least so far, the year is not a record, with 8.3 million acres burned as of mid-September. More than 10 million acres burned in 2015, the worst fire season in decades. But much of that land, as in previous years, was far from population centers, in remote areas of Alaska or western rangelands.

“In stark contrast, this year’s fires are licking at people’s back doors or, in some cases, consuming the doors altogether. While some of that is because the fires are closer to major cities, there is another factor.

“‘As the West becomes more and more populated, we’re seeing more and more homes being built in these areas; the baby boomers retire and they’re building these homes all over, in natural parts of the landscape,’ said Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Land Management. ‘We’re going to see more summers like this.’” New York Times, September 16^th.

Many U.S. states and cities – many seriously and very expensively impacted by the obvious consequences of global climate change – are battling the Trump administration’s policies of climate change denial… his opening up federal lands to fossil fuel extraction, lifting pollution controls and dismantling federal agencies charged with environmental responsibility. One reasonable assumption for us all: we will continue to run up the bill – in human lives and property damage – well into the trillions of dollars; environment disasters will only get worse as we refuse to address the obvious preventative measures that all but three nations (Syria, Nicaragua and the United States) on earth are committed to implement. We have been and continue to be definitely a big part of the problem.

I’m Peter Dekom, and nature follows the laws of physics and chemistry despite the Trump administration’s attempt to overrule science itself.