Just came back from one of the few theatrical screenings of Bring Your Own Brigade, a documentary on the California wildfires of 2018 (with some extension to other western wildfires), most notably the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, CA. It is, by stages, frightening, despairing, and hopeful. It is supposed to stream on Paramount+ after the brief, limited theatrical release.
I’m now hoping that the North Atlantic circulation fails and things get colder for a while. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s what I got.
@peccavi I’m definitely interested in that film. The last few years have been brutal. I’ll take any hope that I can get.
The Dixie Fire is now the largest wildfire in recorded California state history. At least 550 homes destroyed.
And Montana now also has a huge wildfire that is threatening multiple small communities.
Water cuts in Arizona:
I don’t suppose that Stephan Pastis is reading this thread; he’s probably just reading the news.
Somebody asked me how they name the fires, and I had to assure them that my dog was completely innocent!
She killed a lot of the wife’s rabbits, but she’s no firebug!
There’s usually a fairly long lead time for comic strips distributed for newspapers. Some 6 to 8 weeks, I understand. It’s been about 6 weeks since the Great Northwest Heatwave. The Bootleg fire down in southern Oregon started about a week later, but there were other fires already in progress. So my guess is the same as yours, he was just reacting to all that news, but specifically to GNH.
The Forest Service is operating at 100%:
The roughly 21,000 federal firefighters working on the ground is more than double the number of firefighters sent to contain forest fires at this time a year ago, and the agency is facing “critical resources limitations,” said Anthony Scardina, a deputy forester for the agency’s Pacific Southwest region.
An estimated 6,170 firefighters alone are battling the Dixie Fire in Northern California, the largest of 100 large fires burning in 14 states, with dozens more burning in western Canada.
Water cuts are expected to be officially announced in a few hours:
And the Caldor Fire, near Omo Ranch, is 60 miles from my location. Fires much further away cause air quality problems here, and DH is a construction worker.
There was a recent interesting story in the Spokesman Review about entry firefighters making less than Washington minimum wage. Not sure how they recruit folks to take a dangerous, hard job when it pays less than you can make elsewhere.
This is major, major news, and I think it could be the beginning of the end of migration to the American West. Beyond that, I think it’s the beginning of catabolic collapse of American civilization and the American nation-state that will take place over a 10-20 year period.
Most people don’t understand the implications. Few do. This is the death of America happening right before our eyes. It’s not Chicken Little. This is our reality: the beginning of the end of the American nation-state, within 20 years. The comforts around you, the digital wealth that you have in your online accounts…that will collapse. It will happen faster than we can react to/prepare for. The US will collapse like Rome, like the USSR, like the Mayan Empire. If you’re under 45, you will not retire. If you’re under 30, you will struggle throughout life.
A lot of people thought I was a bit nuts for predicting Trumpist authoritarianism. I am 10X more certain of this outcome. Much, much more certain.
I have been a climate change doom-sayer for a very long time. I was hoping that things would hold up until I was dead, but the way things have accelerated over the last five or six years have told me to give up on that. Now I’m hoping that things hold up until my 85 year old mother is gone.
I’m glad we choose to not have any children, we have no hostages to the future.
The Bootleg Fire is 100% contained.
Stupid question warning:
What does the time of day have to do with AQI?
The Dixie Fire is moving in to Susanville, pop. 18,000.
*Nevada just enacted a moratorium on non-functional grass that affects the Clark County area
It’s awful by the way, especially today. Outside smells like a campfire, my car was sprinkled with ash this morning.
There’s not a huge alarm with the Truckee. Yes it was a dry winter, but it’s not been the driest in recent memory. If more people move from California and put a strain? Who’s to say.
Sixty miles from my location. BTW, as of about 35 minutes ago, Cal Fire’s saying this is over 53k acres, about 2 hours after CNN said over 30k.
Raining nicely in MT. Smells like a wet campfire. Only a third of inch so far but looks like more is on the way. Dropped from 86 degrees to 68 in 30 minutes yesterday. 45 degrees now.