Connelly: It's time for Washington to focus the mind on forest fires
By Joel Connelly, SeattlePI
As a 17-year-old college freshman, on his first day of class in a room beneath the fabled Golden Dome, I watched rookie English instructor Paul Rathburn write on the blackboard:
"There is no substitute for early preparation."
-snip-
The Rathburn rule came to mind half-a-century later, when I watched a forest fire turn trees into torches as it shot up a slope between Newhalem and Diablo above the North Cascades Highway. We were on the west (wet) side of the Cascades. As one who'd hiked slopes above the "Magic Skagit," 'was used to mud and rock slides.
The advent of global warming, and global recognition of the Northwest as a place to live, gives new meaning to that blackboard message. We have, in the past half-decade, seen a million acres burn in one fire season, while 440,000 acres of forest and grasslands were devoured by another. A rain forest drought was cause of a persistent fire far up the Queets River in Olympic National Park.
As Washington taxpayers, we're footing a firefighting bill that averages out to $153 million a year.
Fire seasons remind us of a basic truth: You can't forecast the future.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/connelly-it-s-time-for-washington-to-focus-the-mind-on-forest-fires/ar-BBZOT9E?ocid=hplocalnews
