Alaska Wildfires
June 16th, 2006Anyone who still thinks global warming is not happening should consider the headline I saw last week about a wildfire in Alaska. Not Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado or California. Alaska. This one began around June 8th, and spread to 4,800 acres before it was brought under control. Not one week later, another fire southwest of Fairbanks grew to 58,000 acres. What’s going on? To paraphrase Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own: “There’s no wildfires in Alaska!!!”
Well, there is, if global warming is a happening thing.
2005 was a record year for wildfires in Alaska, with 4.4 million acres burned that year. For you non-believers, I will admit it was less than the year before, which was 6.6 million, but that’s like President Bush or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld saying the U.S. is turning yet another corner out of Iraq.
Instead of turning a corner, we should be putting it in reverse.
June 16th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
True, there has been quite a bit of fire danger up here for a few years, We just have not been getting the rain like we should. Also, a few years back we had an infestation of spruce bark beetles throught Southcentral Alaska which kills Spruce trees standing. Dead spruce trees burn like gasoline, fast and hot with a little staying power.
June 17th, 2006 at 1:44 am
Yup,and those beetles thrived because, most likely temps in that area did not hit freezing for a long-enough time to kill them off. Need we say more???? While global climate change may not be alive and well, it is definitely here, and something we all will be forced to contend with.