We haven't had any big fires within 10 or 20 miles of our house this year, but we are smelling a lot of smoke. It is amazing to me how many people that I have seen throwing burning cigarette butts out of their windows in the last couple months. A high percentage have been from people with out of state plates from British Columbia, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, and strangely Texas and Utah... all places where they are also having drought issues this year. Mostly this has been causing just grass fires along the interstate, but I have seen lit cigarettes being thrown out of windows on the rural road below our house as well and we are completely surrounded by tall firs with very dry under growth.
We had a 53,000 acre fire 12 miles north of town (Durango, Colo.). The cause is unknown but there is no traffic in those rugged mountains and canyons. Our narrow gauge train travels through the area so the first thing the tree huggers did was accuse the train of spewing cinders and starting the fire. The owner of the train had his house vandalized, his car spit on, etc.
No cause of the fire has been officially determined.
His train brings in over 1000 people a day and this town is reliant on that income. Now, over 45 days after the fire the train is running again and everyone but the tree huggers are happy.
Woops...I meant to say “the cause of the fire has not been officially determined”.