The news just keeps getting more bleak. With no rain and windy weather in the forecast, the fires here in Washington State have already become an international news story with no end in sight. Australia and New Zealand are sending fire experts to help quell the disaster. (They fight deadly fires like these routinely, I’ve noticed.) Thank you!!!
I lived in eastern Washington for ten years as a teenager and young adult, so the conflagrations there feel personal. My best friend has a 25-year old horse there who needs to be rescued and taken to a safe place stat. (The horse, Lucky Girl, is a “who” to us–not a “that”. I hate the rule that says we must consider animals anything less than “who’s”.) People are working on that as I write this.
Kittitas County in eastern Washington, where I spent my teenage years, is metaphorically down on its knees begging people not to camp, light a match, or even fire up a camp stove in the tinder-dry conditions there. The authorities are reminding people not to let chains drag on the road when hauling trailers because sparks will cause fires if they land in the tinder-try grasses along highways. One roadside warning sign (to offer levity in a deadly-serious situation while underscoring the enormity of the fire danger, I presume) cautions, “Don’t even fart in the forest right now.”
It has never been like this here. Even our rain forest has been on fire!
It feels a little like Armageddon. The Pacific Northwest was supposed to be one of the places least affected by climate change and global warming. Looks like that prediction was wrong!
Please keep Washington, Oregon, California and British Columbia (and Alberta, too) in your prayers. This is a year that will go down in history in all the ways we wish it wouldn’t.
It’s hard to keep my mind on work, or anything else, knowing there are people, domestic and farm animals and wildlife in the direct path of roaring flames that can move faster than anyone can outrun them. I saw an entire hillside burn at the rate of what appeared to be at least 20 feet per second sideways. The film was taken from half a mile or more away, so the rate of spread might have been even faster than that.
Devastating.
