Yeah, this was a mostly uncomplicated fire year compared to recent ones, at least here in the US. (Globally and Europe in particular are a different story.) We never got to the point where our resources were overwhelmed and cumulative physical fatigue was not as much a factor as in the last few years. Looks like we're coming to the end of the Santa Ana wind season in SoCal without much going on too. Still, we lost lives, communities, homes, businesses, watersheds, and natural values. When I started, this level of activity would have been the norm. I fear that the intense years are now what we can expect, but I'm grateful for this respite. Looking at the 2023 fire year, the level of drought and expected continuation of drought through much of the US does not leave me optimistic right now.
We're losing millions of trees in the NW, primarily due to drought. That's a lot of available dry fuel in coming years.
Here's a video from a 2020 fire I hadn't seen until today. A huge Douglas fir tree is burning and so firefighters drop it so the fire won't spread to other trees and can be put out on the ground. This is what we call a hazard tree.
