"The forest is burning like you're pouring gasoline on it, and the wind is like taking a blowtorch to it," fire spokesman Jim Paxon said in Snow Low, Arizona. That Rodeo fire has already consumed 128,000 acres and threatens to merge with another fast-moving 15,000-acre fire.
A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, revealed that global warming will reduce the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which urban areas depend upon for their fresh water.
"We're concerned with a change in rainfall patterns,"
A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, revealed that global warming will reduce the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which urban areas depend upon for their fresh water.
"We're concerned with a change in rainfall patterns,"
reveals Andrea Tuttle, director of the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. "We're concerned about fuels drying out faster. That will increase the fire danger."
Capt. Gatchalian notes,
"Climate change has a major impact. We have to address the underlying issues of the growing threat of fires. The struggle will be for water. Corporations are busy buying up the water supply. The U.S. - especially the Western States - can expect heightened water wars."
When corporations own more of the water supplies, they can charge for its use to fight fires.
Capt. Gatchalian notes,
"Climate change has a major impact. We have to address the underlying issues of the growing threat of fires. The struggle will be for water. Corporations are busy buying up the water supply. The U.S. - especially the Western States - can expect heightened water wars."
When corporations own more of the water supplies, they can charge for its use to fight fires.
More people are building in areas that are high risks for fires. Ten times as many homes are now in wooded areas, prone to wildfires than were there 25 years ago, according to a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center, Don Smurthwaite, recently quoted in the New York Times. As development grows, so do the risks.
My Northern California neighbor Robert Andersen writes, "We Western Americans, bowing to the pressures of developers, have pretended that the arid West is like the mid-West and the East. We drain the waters of the Sierras, so that the rich of Los Angeles can fill more
My Northern California neighbor Robert Andersen writes, "We Western Americans, bowing to the pressures of developers, have pretended that the arid West is like the mid-West and the East. We drain the waters of the Sierras, so that the rich of Los Angeles can fill more