Ray Ring

Senior Editor

With a couple hundred homes near Lake Tahoe burned down by a forest fire this week, and other wildfires taking hold in the West, let’s do a multimedia fest:

(1) For the rush of what’s like to battle wildfires, in a raucous 9-minute webvideo, click here.

(2) For a map of today’s wildfires at a glance (and you can click on the hotspots to get specific info), begin here.

(3) For a satellite view of the Tahoe smoke plume, updated regularly, click here.

(4) For satellite views of other states, updated regularly as the fire season continues, begin by clicking here.

For our previous posts on wildfires, with links to global warming, click here and scroll down.

Editorial note: Wildfires are serious business. The hotshots’ YouTube show is more than a bit of leavening: It’s a window into the hotshots’ psychology, what it takes for some people to get out there and risk injury and death against the flames.