Dry Days Bring Ferocious Start to Fire Season

Another summer of record-breaking drought and heat has seized the West, setting off costly and destructive wildfires from Southern California...to Montana...“Our fire season started a month ahead, our crops matured weeks ahead and the dry weather we usually get in August, we’ve had since May,” said Peter J. Goldmark, Washington’s commissioner of public lands. Walking along the edge of the Blue Creek fire, burning near the Oregon-Washington border, he added, “By heavens, if this isn’t a sign of climate change, then what is climate change going to bring?”