An association of fire ecologists have issued a five page warning:
Currently, we are observing wildland fire conditions previously considered rare, such as extreme wildfire events (e.g. high heat release and severe impact to ecosystems), lengthened wildfire seasons, and large-scale wildfires in fire-sensitive ecosystems (e.g. tropical rain forests and arid deserts).
And here, palm-oil plantation owners and entrepreneurs are being taken to court for setting fire to their forest holdings — a cheap way to clear land for palm oil plantations to grow food for our cars.
The Indonesian government plans to sue three oil palm plantation firms and one oil palm entrepreneur for allegedly starting fires in their concessions that grew into massive forest fires in Riau province, a newspaper said Saturday.
And to ice the cake, I received a call yesterday warning me that the road to my forest property (located in Dewatto, near a Boy Scout camp) was closed because of a forest fire:
In Western Washington, the Dewatto fire on the Kitsap Peninsula, near Hood Canal, has burned more than 150 acres and prompted the evacuation of a Boy Scout camp and several homes. Helicopters dropped water over the holiday weekend and more than 100 firefighters were working on extinguishing hot spots Monday.
The fire was manmade, as are most. The brush pickers who trample these forests are big on smoking — not to say it was a brush picker. It could also have been an off-road enthusiast, or any other idiot. I plan to pay a visit later this week to see if there is anything left of Lizard Hill (PDF).
Global warming will eventually touch all of us.
