Those of us in Eastern Colorado and the Front Range region have pretty much felt the Wildfires this season via cloudy skies, a constant haze, and closed recreation areas. We can see the glow on the rare clear days that in previous years is just your standard Summer Day in the Rockies.
But as of yesterday, Rocky Mountain National Park has completely closed, and all towns in the region are under mandatory evacuation. I'll be spending part of tomorrow helping a friend evacuate his sister's Ranch, and the about 80 horses of 200 total- the rest are already on their way East and South. All roads into Estes Park and other towns are completely closed for inbound travel and only open for emergency vehicles and evacuation. The only good news is that many areas of RMNP are expecting up to 20" of snow over the weekend.
About three months ago we long passed the "pointing fingers" stage of these Wildfires throughout the West, yet it still persists. Its high time we stopped blaming or seeking the causes and just do what's needed- fight the fires, not ourselves. Hundreds of native species across Colorado, California, Nevada, Oregon, and other states are irrevocably damaged due to fleeing the fires. Populations that aren't intended to mix are now all twisted up, which could result in many populations that had no predators in their region now have Black Bears, Cougars, and Wolfpacks in their backyard. Not to mention the loss of old-growth forests at altitude that take orders of magnitude longer to grow than their counterparts closer to sea level.
And if those issues aren't your thing, the already fragile tourist market of the Rockies and parts of California that were on edge due to Social Distancing measures and COVID shutdowns have been affected by reduced travel...when the one thing many sought for a break from the quarantine madness was a little solace in the mountains.
For many years I felt that the "increase" in natural disasters was actually due to increased coverage by round-the-clock news providers. We were just hearing about them more, there wasn't really a massive increase. But when one looks at the number of Named Storms in the Atlantic this Hurricane Season, and fires out West who's total burnt square mileage has increased sixfold in the time period of 2000-2020 compared to all of 1950-2000...its hard to ignore numbers. And even those who choose to ignore are still subject to them.
