Europe 2003 – Moscow – Texas – Colorado … the cherry pickers are at it again.
June 29, 2012
As the American West’s fire season races off to a ferocious start, researchers suggest that the increasingly hotter, drier region is just beginning to pay off a “fire deficit.”
By Tom Yulsman
BOULDER, Colo. – As the West has warmed and dried over the past 30 years, headlines describing fire season have grown ever more apocalyptic: “epic” dryness, “monster” fires, new records for damage and devastation.
There is no trend in western precipitation. We were having floods and record snowpack in Colorado during the previous two Junes. The fires in the west this year have been small compared to the giant fires of 1871, 1881 1898, 1910, etc. The only thing that is epic is the level of bullshit from climate alarmists.
This year is no exception. The Waldo Canyon Fire has incinerated hundreds of homes in Colorado Springs, and every indication points to another big, early start to the wildfire season.
The Waldo Canyon fire is not a huge fire. A lot of people built houses in a very vulnerable location, and the inevitable is happening. The monsoons are starting, and as happens every year, fire activity in the southwest will decline during July and August.
Recent research, however, suggests these severe conflagrations could be a prelude. Climate stressors are putting increasing pressure on a “fire deficit” the West has accumulated over the past 100 years, say scientists who have compared today’s burn rates with fire activity over thousands of years. As the West continues to warm, that debt will come due – possibly with interest – triggering fires that are fiercer and harder to contain, they warn.
In other words, a century of fire suppression has left a forest where the tree density is about 10X higher than it was 100 years ago, so the fires are burning very hot. Yulsman completely misrepresented the point of the study – which was that we have been through 100 years of historically low fire activity and that fire activity may return to normal.