Alaskans can take a peek out the window this week to catch a glimpse of climate change. It seems the entire state is on fire, and those fires are burning up land at a pace far beyond that of 2004, the previous record-setting year.
Here are the stats:
- Wildfires in Alaska have burned more than 1.25 million acres so far this year. That’s an area 32 times the size of Washington, D.C.
- 3,343 firefighters are currently working in Alaska. That’s one-third of all the wildland firefighters currently tasked in the United States.
- 85 percent of the area burned nationwide this year by wildfire has been in Alaska.
The state of Alaska is at its highest level of alert. Its Tuesday wildfire situation report was 65 pages long. And the problem is getting worse: Wildfires now burn five times more acreage each year in our northernmost state than they did in 1943.
More: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/30/alaska_wildfires_climate_change_is_helping_spark_big_fires_at_a_record_pace.html
Exposing the Big Game 
The link to NWS Alaska Region map has Twitter comments, most of which are myopic or stupid, with one saying: Kirk M. Maxey @KirkMMaxey Jun 29
@NWSAlaska @EricHolthaus Wildfire is not “BAD” – it is part of the natural cycle of #ecology Growth and diversity both depend on it.
These fires are not the “natural cycle” of things. On the contrary, these are directly related to human-caused climate change, but many idiots cannot or will understand this. No mention of what this catastrophe is doing to wild animals. I am sick of hearing about “how many houses are burned.”
http://www.foranimals.org
Me too.–what does that matter in the scheme of things?