The West is on Fire
Jonathan Thompson
Editor in ChiefSizzling, scorching, torrid, flaming — they all describe the West right now. A heat wave stretched from Boise to Tucson in late June and early July, bringing record-breaking, triple-digit temperatures to places as unlikely as Billings, Mont. Phoenix reached about 116 degrees last week, but the big records were broken in the coolest part of the day: day after day of minimum temps in the 90s.
Now, the heat wave seems to be subsiding somewhat, but it’s left a lot of fires in its wake. Most notably is the Milford Flat fire in central Utah, which had burned 300,000 acres — or 469 square miles — as of this morning, making it the largest ever in the state. Thus far this year, some 2.48 million acres have burned. That’s more than the ten year average, but less than in ‘06, ‘05, ‘04, and ‘02.
For all of you natural disaster junkies out there, here’s a list of fire-watching resources:
Ray Ring’s “A losing battle” HCN feature story, along with related articles
More past coverage from High Country News
Goat Blog postings relating to wildfire
National Fire News (updated roster of current fires and other stats, along with links to other resources)