Almost a year later, we could still smell the stench of charred wood. Our hands came away black from even the slightest contact.
What was once a familiar landscape, felt foreign. Instead of walking among towering trees, our path was barren, with only ferns, flowers, and saplings showing any signs of life.
There’s an entire category of flowers called “fire followers.” Growing next to the charred trees, the warm-colored Fireweed and Goldenrod stood in stark contrast.
We also noticed a lack of wildlife. Where chipmunks and ground squirrels once pestered us to share our snacks, we got to keep them for ourselves. Down in the meadow, only a smattering of elk appeared at dusk.
In late October 2020, Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire burned almost 200,000 acres, including a section of Rocky Mountain National Park that my family and I have long enjoyed. The fire was so intense that it jumped the west side of the Continental Divide, sending fiery embers across 2 miles of high-elevation tundra, catching fire down on the eastern slope. Plumes of smoke rose to 40,000 feet, with winds recorded up to 100 mph.
The East Troublesome was the second-largest wildfire in Colorado’s history. As a whole, 2020 was the state’s worst fire season on record, bringing about a total loss of more than 650,000 acres.
HAZY SKIES in Colorado told us that not much has changed for 2021.
At first, we didn’t believe the pervasive film was from forest fires hundreds of miles away, but park rangers verified this was the case.
Today, 96 forest fires are raging across much of the Western United States, including five in Colorado. The Bootleg Fire in Oregon has consumed more than 400,000 acres and is so widespread it’s creating its own weather pattern, meteorologists say.
On Thursday, the Dixie Fire in northern California destroyed the town of Greenville, population 1,000. Locals say the town is now “unrecognizable.”
And it’s not just in the United States. Mega-fires are scoring much of Lebanon, Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey. Last year in Australia, more than 42 million acres were damaged by forest fires.
In contrast to those who maintain climate change is hooey, the data is quite conclusive.
And in addition to warming temperatures, birds are migrating earlier, marine species are moving north, plants are blooming earlier, ice sheets are melting and the sea levels are rising.
A study published in 2020 in the journal Science concluded that climate change due to mankind’s refusal to stop burning fossil fuels has made drought conditions 46% worse between 2000 and 2018. For forests, the cumulative effect is a marked decrease in the moisture content in trees, making them more susceptible to catching fire.
In Colorado, dry is the new normal, meteorologists say.
