Posted on 06/21/2002 3:30:12 PM PDT by Apollo
A trend has developed in the news business over the past few years to report forest fires, any forest fire. In fact, forest fire news is so popular that it has become the land-locked equivalent of reporting every shark attack. Why, if it weren't for forest fires and shark attacks most of the cable news outlets would go out of business. It is almost a rule of thumb that the more forest fire and shark attack news you get, the farther out we are from Sept. 11.
I'm not sure, but I think we are supposed to get the idea that forest fires, or wildfires, are caused by global warming. I can't think of any other reason to breathlessly report a 2,300-acre fire in a state the size of, say, Montana. I suppose if you glance at the number, 2,300 acres, and you don't process it, you could get the idea that the entire state was on fire.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a Web site that features something called the Lake Finder. You can type in the name of most lakes in the state, and the computer will spit out a statistical report including the size of the lake by acres. A 2,300-acre forest fire is about the size of White Bear Lake. Now, drop White Bear Lake into a state the size of Montana and what you have is a little fire that is about big enough to roast weenies and marshmallows.
Now, every time I read a forest fire story I go to the DNR Web site, find a lake in Minnesota that equals the fire in acres, and my mind is put to rest. For example, in Thursday's forest-fire news roundup we learn of a 2,200-acre wildfire in New Mexico (White Bear Lake) and a 15,000-acre fire near Yosemite in California (Lake Minnetonka).
And yet, despite the relatively small size of most forest fires, they are reported as major breaking news events, even the ones smaller than 1,000 acres, which gets you down to the Lake Phalen and Lake Harriet size.
Maybe that's what Terry Barton was thinking when she allegedly started a fire in Colorado, the so-called Hayman fire. Barton is the 38-year-old Forest Service employee who is charged with arson. Maybe it was one of those deals where she wanted to start a fire, put it out, report it and get her mug on CNN. But when investigators checked her facts, they couldn't make her story hold water.
Barton told investigators that all she did was burn a letter from her estranged husband. That alone was enough for an editorialist across the river to posit the outlandish theory that her estranged husband was to blame — if only he hadn't put down all that anger on paper — only to discover that there probably wasn't a letter in the first place. Even if there was a letter how could anyone in Minneapolis know its contents?
Because of the way I have taught myself to read forest fire stories, I never bought Barton's story to begin with. Here we had a 15-year U.S. Forest Service worker who knew how dangerous the conditions were, and yet by lighting a lousy little letter she started a roaring fire. I didn't buy it. At the time she was nabbed, that Hayman fire was about Lake Vermilion.
The Hayman fire is approaching 135,000 acres, or almost the exact size of Mille Lacs. That isn't a big fire in a state the size of Colorado, which doesn't mean that it isn't a dangerous fire. Already, 25 homes have been destroyed, and 7,500 people have been evacuated. It has been a tough fire to control.
And all because some woman who is quite possibly a basket case, allegedly set the fire on purpose. The global-warming crowd, not to mention the lovelorn, have to read forest fire stories carefully.
Hayman not a big fire? Perhaps not compared to the size of the entire state. Make no mistake, this is not a small burn. Those 135,000 acres are enough to swallow Washington DC three times over, with plenty of scorched woodland left to spare.
If Mr. Soucheray needs a better illustration of how large this fire is, he could attempt to walk its perimeter and give us his reactions when he returns to the comfort of his newsroom desk.
I wouldn't expect to hear from him soon.
I think that is the point he is trying to make. Colorado has approximately 22.6 million acres of forest and this fire is 135,000 acres.
Before we get wrapped around the axle of individual fires, let's remember that the above figure is more than double the 10-year average for acres burned by this time of year, and the fires we've had in 2002 have already cost hundreds of homes and, with the crash of the C-130 in California, at least 3 human lives.
These fires are not good news, and they're not minor news to the men and women who are losing property, homes, or lives as a result of them. Maybe the reporting will open some eyes to the danger of drought, limited resources, and tinder/fuel rich forests!
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