A severe drought coupled with the human-induced climate crisis has sparked a fire season that has already seen more than three times as much land burned in California this year than during the same time span last year, officials said.
The state recorded its worst fire season in 2020, with around 4.1 million estimated acres burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
As of Monday, fires had scorched 142,477 acres in the state. That’s 103,588 more acres than during the same time period last year, Cal Fire said Monday.
(CNN, July 13, 2021)
Given that, I fear it’s only a matter of time before the National Interagency Fire Center is measuring the damage not in acres burned but in homes destroyed. Even more ominous, though, is that these fires are eradicating all doubt that they are “the new normal.”
After all, here is what I wrote about these recurring wildfires for over a decade in commentaries like “California Burning: ‘The New Normal’?” August 2, 2018, “Wildfire Redux: California Burning … Again,” September 2, 2009, and “California’s Fiery Katrina,” October 25, 2007, which includes the following:
__________
Given the remarkable precision and care with which a reported one million people have been evacuated from the amorphous vortex of raging wildfires in California, it seems clear that federal, state, and local government officials have heeded the tragic lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
[But] no matter how prepared and resourceful, there’s only so much man can do to tame Mother Nature’s fury – whether she rains flooding waters or scorching fires …
Therefore, as we watch in feckless awe, let us pray for the millions whose lives have been disrupted, the hundreds of thousands who have been displaced, and the thousands who have lost their homes or businesses.
_________
Meanwhile, apropos of eradicating doubt, the two-headed hydra of climate change is raging with feast or famine-like cruelty – as rain is flooding the east coast while fire is scorching the west.
There were two intense areas of heavy rain in the Northeast on Monday afternoon and evening. Across Bucks and Burlington counties in southeast Pennsylvania, 6 to 12 inches of rain fell in a few hours, prompting high water rescues across the area. Farther north, radar reports estimated that 3 to 5 inches of rain had fell in western Passaic County and far western Bergen County in New Jersey.
As of Tuesday morning, it had rained 9 out of 13 days so far this month in New York City. And with 8.49 inches of rain so far, the Big Apple is now having its seventh wettest July on record.
The stats are even more extreme for Boston, where it has rained every day this month, leading to 8.9 inches of rain.
(NBC News July 13, 2021)
Of course, as perverse as it might seem, it’s rather quaint to think of “historic” wildfires and floods as the “new normal” in an America now dominated by deadly pandemics and (Trump’s) dystopian politics.
So here’s to sparing a thought for those affected by the former – as we all continue to reel from the latter.
Related commentaries:
California burning…
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