9 scary facts about the Yosemite fire

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/9-scary-facts-about-the-yosemite-fire/

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1. It’s huge.

The fire is now one of the 20 largest fires in California history. It started on Aug. 17 in a remote area of the forest and initially doubled in size every day. Currently, it’s bigger than Chicago and threatens 4,500 human structures, though relatively few – 23, including a summer camp – have been destroyed.

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. It’s growing quickly.

The fire has two layers: It’s spreading through both the dry brush on the ground and up above in the canopy of the treetops. “Our firefighters are on the ground having to spray up,” Daniel Berlant of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told CBS News on Sunday.

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3. It’s really, really hard to fight.

The steep, remote topography of western Yosemite makes it difficult for firefighters to get the blaze. Narrow rivers flowing down the peaks cool the air, which makes the wind blow in all kinds of directions, says Julie Hutchinson, battalion chief and information officer for the California department of forestry and fire protection. The result is that the flames spread in various directions,making it hard to predict where it will go next.

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1. it is also serving a valuable natural function, a function humans fail to oppress nt

[liberal N proud]

2. These fires are so large because humans have spent so long stopping them

Yellowstone 1988 has taught nothing. Experts then pointed out that the reason the fires were so large is because they fought fires to the point where fuel was so great.

These forest have to burn in order to renew for the next generations. Past policies did not consider that trees get old too and that a new generation must be allowed to thrive.

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3. It's worse than that

Due to the nature of the fuel, these kinds of fires burn very very hot, and leave behind a "moonscape" that resists moisture and will take decades to recover. In the meantime floods occur, like the ones in Manitou Springs in recent weeks.