The smoke swirled about last night, leaving me to awaken with a mouth that tasted like I’d been on a pub crawl. But the smoke was far lighter today, either the fire weakening or the smoke following a different course.
The Truth Laid Bear” has some spiffy maps regarding the fires ripping through Colorado, including an overlay on the map from yesterday showing highways and major cities. Not to mention the extent, this a.m., of the Hayman fire. Interesting, and scary, stuff.
New, ongoing info here and here. It’s a bad one, folks.
UPDATE: KMGH’s coverage story is now here. The 9News story is as above. They’re actually planning on evacuations reaching all the way up to Chapman Reservoir which … I … drive by … on my … daily commute.
Yeesh.
Margie says (though the stories don’t mention it) she’d heard on the radio that the wind has turned to push the fire back south. That changes some of the evacuation parameters, but makes things a bit more complex for the communities down that way …
1. My folks are cute, calling up with some concern over how close the fire was to us. To judge by the national media, of course, the city of Denver is in Imminent Peril of being burnt to flinders. This is, of course, similar to “Earthquake Rocks California – News at 11!” sort of stuff — a few people are directly and tragically affected, but the impact to the populace as a whole is greatly exagerrated.
We’re all fine here. Aside from the smoke.
2. KMGH keeps going to new story pages regarding the fire. The latest is here. Things are looking somewhat better today.
On that page, it notes Governor “Owens told 7NEWS Tuesday morning that he wanted to increase punishment for those who started wildfires.” Which is dumb, since it’s no real deterrent. Nobody (well, only a few folks) intend to start fires. We need to increase punishment for those who start illegal fires. That will deter people from causing conditions that can lead to wildfires.
Perhaps the Governor should also look at the mandate of NOT allowing smaller fires to burn on state and national lands. We used to camp and fish the South Platte near Deckers. The BLM, Forest Service, and state government have a policy in place to extinguish all fires. The amount of underbrush (read Fuel) is incredible. CU and UW have done studies that show how wrong this practice can be, but it’s fallen on deaf ears.
The whole question of how to manage underbrush/fuel without (a) providing gobs of explosively dry fuel for the next fire, and (b) inadvertently pulling a Los Alamos is certainly open for debate once more.
I think that the key to this “fuel” issue is managment, but we don’t allot enough money for folks to do just that. We want to underfund our open spaces, hoping that they’ll be fine if we ignore them 90% of the time. Unfortunetly, during the 10% that we are paying attention, the space is usually in flames! Then come the complaints and recriminations, but winter usually follows and brush fires don’t seem quite so important, and the circle remains unbroken…
I agree that funding has always been an issue with our national forests and parks. But what can be expected when such a small portion of the people who use these resources pay for its upkeep. The taxes levied against hunting and fishing equipment are the ONLY funds (except disaster reflief aid) that are earmarked for our forests. How about taxing the mountain bikes, camping equipment, etc that people use for out-of-door activities?
Good points. We spend a lot of money on fire suppression, and a lot of money on the cost of fires. Spreading out that burden, as well as investing some of it in preventive activities, would all be worthwhile.