Well, that was never my intention. The fires that we are having (at least here in BC) is a direct result of the extreme dry conditions we have had all summer. Here on the Island we have not had any significant rain since May and everything is as dry as a popcorn fart. Add stupid people and dry lightning strikes to that and you got what we got - half the province on fire. Another contributing factor is the large amounts of dry tinder left after logging operations. All that slash used to be eliminated in controlled burns but that was prohibited years ago because the environmentalists didn't like it. Now we pay the price. Add in the huge tracks of pine forest killed by the pine beetle and becoming perfect tinder and there is no wonder the forests are explosive.
Is it dry because climate factors are changing? Probably but that always leads to the man-caused or natural event argument and I really won't get into that because I think it is probably a combination of both. These last couple of years have been hotter and dryer than we have ever seen here on the coast but is that 'weather' or 'climate'? Don't know.
My original point was that man is very small in the face of nature. We sometimes forget that to our detriment. Hubris.
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Originally Posted by johnboy
