5-minute freewrite Day 295 prompt: burning
Today's prompt seems very appropriate for me, because I live in the Pacific Northwest, where it is wildfire and forest fire season. Sometimes it seems as if the entire area is burning up. It's easy enough to do a google search for "forest fires Idaho" or use another western state, and soon you will have a map showing where all the fires are burning. California is getting hit quite badly this year, and smoke from those fires has been spreading halfway across the country. The air has been hazy where I live, and some days the odor of the smoke is strong enough for me to want to just stay indoors.
Even though we don't have any nearby forest fires, I still feel as if I have been burning up for the past two days, with high temperatures over 100 degrees F. That doesn't happen very often in this area, so I find it most peculiar (and unpleasant) to open the front door and feel as is I am walking into an oven. Someone experimented with baking cookies on the dash of their car, and I understand it worked rather well. I will be very glad when this hot spell of weather subsides; I have never enjoyed hot weather, not even when I was a child, and now, the older I get, the less I like it. I am extremely grateful for our room air conditioner, which keeps the main living area of the house quite comfortable.
I live in the Northwest, too. It hasn't hit 100 where we are yet, but it's been close a time or two. Not used to 90 degree weather three out of five weeks from mid-July into August. I wonder what the rest of the month is going to be like.
Is there anyone in your area talking about how fires are managed, be they through forests or mainly in brush? It seems like these burn and burn before much is done, and it would seem like that some of them at least could be corralled before they got too large. I don't know. Every year there's some kind of fire. We know it's coming, and yet we put people in harm's way, property is destroyed, nature is decimated, and while there may not be a surefire way to prevent them, enough never seems to get done.
My brother-in-law has worked in forestry for over 40 years. He and I have had interesting conversations about forest fires. Needless to say, his perspective is based on many years of experience and study. Part of the current problem is people deciding to build big, fancy homes in more and more remote places and then expecting to somehow be protected from forest fires. Another part of the problem is the public's misunderstanding of proper forest management. If humans don't manage the forests, then Mother Nature takes care of it herself: with a forest fire. Harvesting trees and replanting is part of what needs to be done to maintain healthy forests. It has become a political and emotional subject over the last couple of decades, resulting in demands for poor forest management practices by people who have no idea what they are talking about. If he was on Steemit, I'd have him give you much better information than I just did, but he isn't. Alas. Anyway, thanks for stopping by!
Hey, maybe someday he will. Okay, well, the poor forest management practices is what I hear coming from different sources, and when acres and acres are left to burn, along with the properties, it's hard not to believe it. I can see where the infringement of people into nature could create plenty of problems. I would hope, though, that there's some kind of solution if all sides could/would get together and honestly work on it. But like you said, it's become so politicized, and emotional, that actually having a practical discussion isn't likely. I guess it will take more destruction and even more tragedy. Sad.