WP: California Wildfires May Signal a Difficult Season (across the West)

[DeepModem Mom]

California Wildfires May Signal a Difficult Season
Past Year's Heavy Rain and Snow Nurtured Vegetation That Became Summer Tinder

By Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A02


LOS ANGELES, June 23 -- What could be the West's most dangerous wildfire season in years got off to a rapid and roaring start this week, as blazes consumed several homes and threatened hundreds of others across three states.

In Southern California's Morongo Valley, an isolated house fire sparked a blaze that burned more than 5,000 desert acres and destroyed at least six other houses. In a distant suburb of Phoenix, 150 people fled a 30,000-acre fire spawned by a thunderstorm, while several smaller lightning fires raced across southern Nevada.

Forest officials said the intensity of the fires is the ironic result of the record-breaking rain and snow that hit the region this past year. Though the moisture thwarted fires last fall and relieved drought conditions across the West, it also promoted the growth of fire-prone grasses and brush....

***

Officials said this week's fires are probably a sign of a difficult season ahead. The winter's heavy rainfalls -- Los Angeles is expected to close the season just an inch shy of a 120-year-old record -- may have helped protect trees in higher elevations, but (Jim Wright, deputy director and chief of fire protection for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) predicted a delayed danger...."We're going to have a later-year fire season -- busy-ness with grass fires now, and as the heavier fuels dry, we'll have some bigger ones."...Meanwhile, (Vinnie Picard, a spokesman with the U.S. Forest Service at Arizona's Tonto National Forest) said the fires could take a particular harsh toll on deserts, where many of these grasses were only recently introduced.

"For an ecological system, it's very dangerous," he said. "Cactuses aren't adapted to fire -- they don't grow back. It's really changing the nature of our landscape."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062301701.html

[pfitz59]

1. Reserve firefighters put out signs: .......

"Gone to Iraq!" Fire cycle is normal for western forests and grasslands. Live with it....