As Southern California Burns (again), Remember that Elections Have Consequences

This week, southern California is beset by fires. While this year has been especially bad, fires in California have become increasingly the norm. Even expected. It isn’t even “fire season” yet, because that comes later in the fall, when the Santa Ana winds get going. But what used to be a “fire season” is now virtually year round.

Fires have become an increasing problem, through much of the Mountain West, even in places that didn’t used to have fires, such as the Pacific Northwest, or northern areas, like Montana. Fires have also gotten worse in Colorado, where I live now. I keep an evacution list on my refrigerator. One of my friends from Boulder had her house in the foothills burn down while she was on a wilderness canoe trip (and out of cellphone range) in Yosemite. They got out and found that their house had burned down. Their neighbors rescued their cat. In Colorado, fires are now also year round. On NEW YEARS EVE at the end of 2021, the Marshall Fire in Louisville Colorado burned around three sides of the high school I used to teach at. That was a “safe” suburban neighborhood on the plains, not in the forested mountains, and it was in the winter, not during “fire season.” It didn’t matter. A lot of people weren’t even able to rescue their pets or take anything with them — the fire came through that fast.

Now, Wrightwood, CA, the town I grew up in, is still under evacuation, after the Bridge Fire, which appears to be the worst fire they have…