Beth Lund, leader of the incident management team assigned to the High Park Fire calls it, "epic dryness". Ron Roth, of the Rocky Mountain Area Coordinating Center in Lakewood, CO says, "the whole Central Rocky Mountain range is a tinderbox. Others will just call it a catastrophe. The heat of the summer of 2012 has produced very dry weather causing destructive fires that have so far taken out 135 square miles and destroyed 257 homes just in Colorado, the state it has most effected. Colorado isn't the only state effected however. There are also brutal fires in Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. All of these states have been suffering through this dry summer. "A light winter snow pack, dry spring, more people living in what was once wilderness, and the long-term effects of climate change have all conspired to make an especially bad fire season," commented Roth. Lee Bently, a public information officer for the incident management team is worried that this will also lead to dry vegetation and waves of lightning storms. "Climate change is undoubtedly playing role, of only in the distribution of invasive insects", Ed Delgado, a national predictive services meteorologist states. "The pine bark beetle has been migrating north for years... the insects have killed millions of acres of forest, leaving behind tinder-dry wood," he adds. This timber can be very flammable. Another dangerous risk is that many humans choose to live in what used to be the wilderness so this makes the firefighters less able to put out the fires. Meanwhile, the world watches as they pray these catastrophic wildfires will soon be stopped.
w.usatoday.com/weather/wildfires/story/2012-06-27/western-wildfires/55876196/1
Wow! That's crazy and really sad. :(
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