It is the first week of summer and the Eastern Sierra is almost 50 percent drier than average for this time of year. A bark beetle infestation on June Mountain and in the Sherwin Range above Mammoth stands red and dry as an old bone. It won’t take much to start a fire there. An unprecedented invasion of cheat grass up and down the Eastern Sierra valleys and rangelands (this began five years ago in response to changes in weather and/or climate patterns) exploded even more last year, after the historic wet winter of 2010-11. The now-dry grasses carpet vast areas of the Eastside that firefighters once thought immune to fires. A century of misguided federal fire suppression policy has left the Eastern Sierra full of historic levels of fuels—trees, grasses, and vegetation that can carry fires from one place to another fast—and as prone to fires as the rest of the country. And it’s only June.
http://www.mammothtimes.com/content/risky-business-2012-fire-season-bad-start
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (86% of Full)
Re: 2012 fire season is off to a bad start
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