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Wild Fire And Forest Fire Watch
By the first of week of May, 2002, over 2,700 wild fires had burned more than 100,000 acres in the Western United States, more than three times the number in the previous worst year in Colorado, and the heat is not yet on, in what is shaping up to be one of the worst years for fires in history. During May another 2,400 fires pushed the total number of acres burned to 300,000 by the end of May.
According to reports, Utah is planning to cut irrigation water completely as reservoirs fall, Colorado snow levels are at their all time lows, and in Arizona snow pack in some areas is below 10 per cent, and below 25 per cent else where. Deer herds are dying, the Hoover dam is being tapped to supply water to dry areas, and the Rio Grande in New Mexico is at only 10 per cent of its typical flow rate (the driest it has been for over a century). Fires, once started explode and consume thousands of acres in a matter of just a few hours, with wild fires raging out of control in Canadian forests, with the Forest service stating that they are expected to burn out of control for months. The city of Edmonton was recently swallowed by a smoke cloud from one out of control forest fire in Northern Alberta, and fires are currently threatening towns in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
And the real fire season has not yet arrived, with record drought and forests and pastures in the west tinder dry, and millions of acres of National Forest being completely closed to tourism. In such dry conditions the threat of 'dry thunderstorms' good only for starting fires is also very great. With one third of the usual number of acres already burned in Colorado and three to four times the normal number of fires that occur in a really bad year already burnt in the state before the fire season has even really started, this is shaping up to be one of the worst years for fire, possibly in history, if the not the very worst ever...
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