Reposted from the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
If the nation and world are going to deal with climate change, it is essential that the public is given accurate information.
Unfortunately, a number of media outlets (e.g., the Seattle Times and NPR), politicians, and activist groups are consistently distorting the truth. There are few better examples of this problematic behavior than claims that the wildfire that destroyed the eastern Washington town of Malden in September 2020 was the result of climate change.
This blog will provide you with facts based on data, peer-reviewed papers, and government reports. You can decide whether some folks are misinforming you.
During the past year, a number of media outlets, politicians, and climate activist groups have made unfounded claims that the Malden/Babb fire, which destroyed the town of Malden (roughly 30 miles south of Spokane) was the result of human-induced global warming.
For example, last week the Seattle Times did a long story on the Malden fire and concluded.
National Public Radio, including local NPR station KNKX, did a story with the suggestion that the fires were the result of “global warming hitting us hard.”
And then there is our governor, who claimed the Malden conflagration was a “climate fire”
“ I think we need to start thinking about this as a climate fire because that’s what makes them so explosive.”
I could give you a dozen other examples of such claims about the Malden Fire and climate.
These claims are unfounded and this blog will provide you with the facts.
The Malden/Babb Fire Event
The Malden fire ignited around noon on September 7, 2020, was long and narrow, and moved within hours from its ignition point southwestward across the towns of Malden and Pine City (see map).
Fact 1: The Malden Fire was a grass and bush fire. Trees did not supply significant fuel.
The route of the fire, in arid eastern Washington. was nearly entirely grass, wheat fields, and small bushes. Isolated trees were not a significant fuel source of the fire and most of them remained green after the fires. A satellite image of the path is shown below (GoogleEarth Pro).
An image from GoogleMaps from PineCity/Malden Road gives you a first-hand view of the kind of vegetation the fire traversed.
Grasses and small diameter fuels are easily ignited, dry quickly, and can produce flashy, fast-moving fires when there are strong winds: ALL of these factors were elements of the Malden fire.
Fact 2: The fire was started by a tree, blown by strong winds, hitting a transmission line, creating sparks that ignited grass below.
This was the conclusion of the official WA State Department of Natural Resources report. An image of the tree and the power line is shown below. Note that the tree is STILL GREEN. Stunningly, DNR found that that tree had hit the powerline before, with multiple scars on the tree branch that caused the fire.
Fact 3: Unusually strong winds played a critical role in the fire
Not only did the winds start the fire, but winds rapidly drove the fire to the southwest. The strong winds, which were very dry, further dryed the surface fuels and provided lots of oxygen for fire growth.
The winds that day around Malden were extraordinary in strength, with gusts from the north to northeast reaching 30-50 mph, something indicated by the winds at the nearby Escure RAWS station, about 25 miles downwind of Malden (see below).
Climatological data suggested that the low-level northeasterly winds that day were extremely unusual, if not unprecedented. Support for this statement is found in a peer-reviewed paper I wrote with others that was accepted in the American Meteorological Society journal Weather and Forecasting.
Why Global Warming/Climate Change Had No Role in the Malden Fire
This is easy to demonstrate.
The grasses and other light fuels around Malden are always dry enough to burn by mid-summer. This has always been true and has nothing to do with climate change. Eastern Washington has warm, dry summers and seasonal grasses dry out each warm season.
Below are the 10-h dead fuel moisture (small diameter fuels than can dry within 10 hours) for summers of 2020 and ten years ago (2011). The fuel moisture dries out over the summer to under 10%.
And my peer-reviewed paper documents that the 10-h dead fuel moisture was NOT unusual right before the event (graphic from the paper below showing Columbia Basin fuel moisture conditions). Very typical.
Fire danger from light fuels is greatly reduced when the 10-h dead fuel moisture is above 20%, but there is great danger below 10%, which was evident in September 2020 and is typical for late summer.
Once you are dry enough to burn readily, you are dry enough to burn. A bit warmer or drier conditions during the normally hot/dry eastern WA summers will have little impact. A real weakness of the global warming arguments.
But there is more. Light fuels, like grasses, dry very quickly under dry, windy conditions. That is why grasses and small bushes are called 1-h and 10-h fuels. The Malden fire was preceded by exceptionally strong dry winds.
So even if the fuels had been wet before the event, they would have become sufficiently dry to burn due to the strong winds that day. The preceding weather and climate conditions were not relevant.
Even More Reasons Why Global Warming Had Nothing to Do with the Malden Fire
The extraordinary strong, dry northeasterly winds were key for initiating and spreading the Malden fire. And such winds will dry light fuels even if they were wet before.
It turns out that global warming/climate change will probably WEAKEN such strong offshore-directed winds, because the strong winds during late summer/early fall are generally associated with COLD high pressure in the interior, and global warming preferentially warms the interior of the continent. Such warming weakens the high pressure and thus lessening the strong northeasterly winds. I have been working on this issue, with funding from the Amazon Catalyst project and NSF (see graphic below)
Climate models also suggest the potential for more convective showers in eastern Washington under global warming.
So global warming/climate change may lessen the chances for such fires, NOT increase them. You won’t read that in the Seattle Times.
Regional Climate Simulations Indicate Weakening Easterly Winds over the Region Under Global Warming
The Bottom Line
Major media like the Seattle Times and National Public Radio, as well as some local politicians, have claimed that the Malden Fire was caused by or made more likely by global warming/climate change.
This is not true and they are doing substantial damage by blaming global warming and not calling for taking concrete steps to ensure that Malden disasters don’t happen again.
The Malden Disaster Was Preventable
Instead of blaming global warming/climate change, there are concrete steps that could have prevented this tragedy.
First, trees near powerlines need to be trimmed so branches don’t touch or fall on energized circuits. Clearly, this was not done for this case. Considering the limited trees of the region, it should not be hard to do so. Furthermore, if the powerlines are not properly maintained, at least depower the lines during the very limited periods of strong winds. The winds were well predicted ahead of time for this event.
Courtesy, First Energy Corp
Second, homeowners must create defensible spaces around their homes, without vegetation and debris. Using google maps, one can view the conditions around the homes in Malden before the disaster. Many, if not most, had no defensible space, with vegetation and grass immediately around the homes. And homes can be built to better withstand fires, including non-flammable roofs, screens to prevent embers from entering roof spaces, and more.
Malden before the fire.
A Plea.
Please no name-calling. Every time I write blogs like this on climate change, I get angry messages from activists, calling me a slew of names, with accusations that I am receiving funding from oil companies (I am not), and worse. The Seattle Times did a hit piece on me in August in reaction to my blogs about the heatwave and my criticism of their continual transition to advocacy journalism. And activist scientists like Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt make nasty tweets.
I am as concerned about global warming as any rational person, but we need to start with facts and not hype and exaggeration.
If you are unhappy with the blog, TELL ME WHAT I HAVE GOTTEN WRONG TECHNICALLY.
Please correct headline to read “Malden”.
The ad hominem attacks are juvenile attempts to discredit, silence, someone without using any facts ,or evidence. Your work is great. Please don’t stop.
Yeah, I get a lot of those from your fellow posters Jim…
Projection.
Griff, trouble is, it’s your hero’s on the dark side that the author of the piece is complaining about! Yours is the cancel culture side, yours the threateners of bodily harm, yours the black listers, ….
Griff have you ever:
1. Been a firefighter.
2. Range management
speciaist.
3. Forester./Timber cruiser.
The author is correct this is clearly management/prevention issues here .
BTW I’m a retired aerial firefighter. I was also an instrument pilot instructor and NOAA certified weather observer in Eastern Oregon and Washington.
Very familiar with the conditions with the Malden fire and when I was based in Wenatchee,Wa. Fought several grass fires in similar conditions. Nothing new, but prevention seems to be a lost art….
Why wasn’t that tree (and others) trimmed so that it could not hit the power-lines?
I would guess EPA regulations and green lawsuits prevented it.
Yes, that was my first reaction when I read this:
There seems to be a lot regulation PREVENTING home owners from clearing I fire break on their own land.
Why weren’t controlled burns going on to reduce the probability of wildfires?
Why weren’t firebreaks put in place to prevent fires from spreading?
I can’t answer about the controlled burns — those are political failures. However, firebreaks for a brushfire in 50 mph gusts would probably not work. I have driven through the burned region of the 200,000 acre fire which started in a designated wilderness in southern Wyoming last August and was also driven by 50 mph winds. Embers were blown more than a quarter mile away to start new fires leaving huge unburned areas behind. Dangerous darned fires.
When your available fuel can go from almost no risk of fire (and thus not likely to support even a controlled burn) to dangerous conditions in a matter of 10 HOURS, I would think controlled burns can’t provide significant relief.
In the article:
Okay, around here, the controlled burns will cover several acres at a time, not just a path or a few feet. It’s done here because there is substantial housing near the areas targeted by the fire departments. It reduces the fuel load and kills off invasive species of plants, as well as giving the firefighters real-time practice in bringing a fire under control.
It is very practical, but your perspective – that it might not be practical – is also valid.
Firebreaks won’t work in middle of cultivated wheat or dry savana. They will work on private property to protect a dwelling.
Sara, in most of California’s grassland farmers and county officials make fire breaks on both sides of most roads using graders or tractor drawn harrows. These help with low speed grass fires by effectively widening the road, but not in 40 mph winds.
I dont see such breaks in Cliff’s pictures, but they may be there.
I didn’t see anything like breaks, either, which is why I asked about it. It’s very practical around here.
John, on the Mitchell grass plains in western Queensland our rural fire brigade used to do similar fire breaks on each side of the roads and when a wildfire was coming we would back-burn from those fire breaks.
This works in even 60 mph winds provided you start early enough, before the wildfire is too close.
I agree with Cliff, these sorts of fires have always been around, it just needs standard application to prevent and control them.
Is that even possible when there are so few trees in the area? I doubt whether firebreaks work in grasslands.
Why wasn’t that tree (and others) trimmed so that it could not hit the power-lines?
Ask your friendly local taxpayer-funded bureaucrat: whose job was it to make those trims? The power company? The County which maintains the road rights-of-way? The Tree-Hugger Collective? The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion? They’ll all name the ID of The Villain, and they’ll all be different.
Speaking of trees….the first picture shows the house totally consumed and yet the evergreen trees right next to the structure were not?? Destroyed by DEWS??? Directed Energy Weapons used by the Deep State to create a fake fire and take out their enemies.
More likely the brush ran right up to the house, and as a result caught the house on fire.
The fire was never high enough or hot enough to scorch the nearby trees.
One frequently sees that in California, such as the Paradise fire(s), where the house is consumed, but the trees around the house did not burn.
Even during a drought trees retain more moisture than grasses. A fast moving fire can destroy a house much quicker, especially if it has shrubs, etc growing close it. The moisture in the trees may slow the warming of the trees and prevent extensive burning on them.
Global warming. Someone planted that tree to prevent global warming, and trimming it would be a crime against humanity…that’s my guess (rolls eyes).
giffie lives in the UK, is a devoted BBC watcher and Grauniad reader.
giffie believes everything they publish about global warming-climate change’ and is paid by some fool to spam blogs with specious climate claims.
You also get a lot of facts that demonstrate that you are cherry picking, using anecdotal evidence, and misinterpreting reality. You rarely respond to them, and I have never known you to admit when you were wrong. Might it be that your partisan behavior frustrates posters and they resort to insults after you have ignored them?
I had a first cousin try to play the racist card on me over my post on FakeBook. I called her out, and then again asked her to respond to the question I asked, NOT just insult me. Within 12 hours she had deleted her comment. That’s when I got mad and sent her a direct message, but I still didn’t call her names, I just asked her why she refused to answer my question. Her response…? She felt “threatened and intimidated” that I contacted her directly. So that’s why now I would start with name-calling since liberals turn and run at the first sign of pushback and you don’t get the chance to call them losers after you have proven your point. 🤣
When you repeat the same tired lies over and over again, you shouldn’t expect to get any respect.
Poor, poor Griftster – did someone say something bad about your mommy?
Is the word troll considered ad hominem? I’m just trying to be accurate.
Heres something to chill out to griff difficult to find its age censored now a days.
Think good time griff
Have a ice cream.
https://youtu.be/okjoBYM1dZs
Ad hominem attacks are about silencing counter arguments. It’s not attacks on a stupid comment. That’s criticism.
Griff, people might hate you for pushing propaganda on this site rather than putting forth a propper argument, but we wouldn’t visit your website to express hatred for you expressing your view. Hijacking the comments section of another person’s blog to push propaganda deserves what it gets.
griff try posting further down in the comments. That way you won’t get so many people criticizing your fact-free comments and poorly supported assertions.
If you don’t want ad hominem attacks then submit precise, thorough, well-supported paper such as this one.
Or even just a precise, easy to verify post that makes a proven point.
It has been my experience that the quickest way to make someone angry is to be right. When you are right, a person has two choices: to abandon a deeply-held and cherished belief or invent a reality where the other person is crazy and thus can be dismissed. Most people choose the latter of those two choices. I myself have been guilty of it — but fortunately I have not veered into the ad hominum part in quite a long time.
Excellent observation Wade. It has a name. It’s called “Cognitive Dissonance”.
When somebody starts ranting at you with “BWA HA HA”, or something similar, you know you have won the argument. The best thing is to then respond:
“What you are experiencing is called Cognitive Dissonance, and you have lost the argument”.
ALL the fires have been made much more likely because of human caused global warming – and not just the ones in the USA.
(California’s fire season, for example, is now longer and there are more ‘fire days’.
‘A Plea.
Please no name-calling. Every time I write blogs like this on climate change, I get angry messages from activists, calling me a slew of names‘
Perhaps you’d like to hold commenters replying to this post of mine to the same high standards? Because I don’t work for the communists any more than you work for the oil companies.
======
(Yes EVERYONE is supposed to stay on the policy of a civil based discussion,
(However I have a problem with your poor posting style where you make sweeping statements and fail to back it up when challenged, you have a bad habit of ignoring questions about your assertions and often ignore the posted article itself as you post stuff that are often considered borderline flaming or trolling behavior elsewhere.
Therefore YOU are back in MODERATION expecting that you try harder to be more genial with others in the thread and try to be a better part of the debate/discussion without the absolute sweeping statements you make and ignoring people trying to have a legitimate round of talk with you, you have ignored me a lot!)
SUNMOD
Yawn!
Regards,
Bob
In numbers, California Governor Newsom slashed the 2020 fire prevention budget by 50%. A 2021 wildfire season has been a great success so far. Now he is budgeting $1 billion for fire prevention and $4 bn for a badly needed high-speed train from Bakersfield to Modesto.
…badly needed… should have been in quotation marks. Or quotated as Arlo Guthrie said.
Did you perchance forget something at the conclusion of your post?
Is this the same High Speed train to nowhere that Brown was working on? Who needs to go from Bakersfield to Modesto fast, anyway?
I believe that the California HST will stop about 6 miles short of Bakersfield.
It will not be a ‘High Speed Train’ and it will not go to, or come from, anywhere anyone will want to go. The project, from the start, has been a scam designed to make certain, well connected, people very wealthy.
We’re better than a decade into the ‘project’ and not one choo-choo has chugged yet.
Max P
Easier to build where it is flat, really, really flat. The only issue I see is the land sinking from pumping water out of the aquifers.
Or one of the local faults putting a bend in the rail.
Mr. George: Not only will the HST relieve the over-burdened surface roadway between Modesto and west Bakersfield, but it will double duty as a fabulous firebreak!!!
Ed , IF you ever start posting good posts , you will be given respect .
Falsehoods will not get you any respect !
Griffypoo, hot weather does NOT cause fires. If it does, then please explain WHY there are plenty of fires in cold weather????? You are being completely illogical.
Geezo Pete, I’m worried about you. Please take your vitamins and wear a belt with your trousers.
(Stop calling him names, no more of it please) SUNMOD
OK.
[citation needed]
[evidence needed]
The world hasn’t warmed, all cities have though. Makes it hard to figure out just what is going on, doesn’t it?. Or maybe not for you when you just pick and choose the evidence to show the chosen result. much like Michael Mann. You must have read all his facti-filled papers.
There’s no need to call you names. You show your ignorance in just about every post you make. Keep up the good work. Maybe your hot air, or I guess a hot computer, is the real cause to demonstrate your misunderstanding.
See? No name calling, just facts.
That is an assertion for which you provide no evidence. Once tinder reaches its minimum moisture content, it is a risk only one spark away from a wildfire. Yet, that process of drying out regularly happened every Summer, even 50 years ago. Like the handyman who only owns a hammer and sees every problem as a nail, you see every weather-related problem as evidence of CO2-driven climate change. Is it any wonder that people see you as a fool and tell you as much?
Not only does griff not provide any evidence to support his claims. He’s replying to an article which gives detailed explanations, along with bountiful evidence, refuting griff’s claim.
griff just makes the same empty, disproven claims over and over again. It’s hardly surprising that the frustration levels sometimes reach the point where insults are the only logical response.
With not a single reference to anything written in the article.
Next, we’ll be reading that earthquakes are caused by MAN MADE climate change. Or, have they already started that meme? They blame almost ever OTHER natural phenomenon on it! It’s as if there were NEVER anything like what’s happening now BEFORE man walked on the earth! Or, at least, before the industrial revolution, yet I seem to recall reading MANY books and stories about such things happening LONG, LONG before that! So, are we being fed yet another liberal BS story?
“Next, we’ll be reading that earthquakes are caused by MAN MADE climate change.”
You sound surprised
“How climate change triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes
Global warming may not only be causing more destructive hurricanes, it could also be shaking the ground beneath our feet
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/climate-change-triggers-earthquakes-tsunamis-volcanoes
Enjoy the laugh
“could”.
And “may”. Where’s “might” when you need him?
Mr. Lowe: Possibly, he “march”ed off.
Respect is earned. You on the other hand have been actively insulting the intelligence of everyone on this blog for years.
For example, the above author details exactly why CO2 is not playing a part in wild fires.
You come back with the simple claim that CO2 is playing a role, without providing any proof other than the fact that you wish it to be true.
Mark,
I will politely disagree. All people deserve respect as human beings, until they demonstrate that they don’t deserve it. While I disagree with you on this, we both come to the same conclusion – these trolls have lost whatever respect they were due.
I disagree, I will be cordial with strangers, but if they want my respect, that has to be earned.
“ALL the fires have been made much more likely because of human caused global warming”
Please, give us some facts. Demonstrate your assertion. Yor boldface, capitalized “ALL” is rather stong and incisive: there must be some settled science behind it: please contribute to our enlightenment and tell us where to find that relevant scientific information.
Otherwise, what you have written is nothing more than a … guess?… opinion?… something you say to prove that you are still alive?…
So much to cover there, Griff. But I’ll keep my reply to one single item., OK? The reason California’s fire season is longer (assuming that it is) it’s because back in the 80’s-90’s they stopped doing burning back the dead brush, thus allowing MORE fuel for future fires. It’s really just that simple, Griff. It’s like shooting one’ self in the foot. The result are predictable. Unless, of course, you think the trees grew too fast to trim them, because of ‘climate change’ or ‘global; warming’? There, now, Griff, I didn’t call you any nasty names or make snide remoarks, just an honest opinion. Now, isn’t that easy?
“ALL the fires have been made much more likely because of human caused global warming – and not just the ones in the USA.”
No, they haven’t. Stop making things up.
‘A Plea.
Provide some evidence rather than grifftastic pronouncements that bear no relation to reality.
Here, try this:
Yer an idiot.
Once agin: Poor, baby Grifster…
(Carlo and Gregory, lets drop the off topic comments, they don’t add value to the thread and it is pointless name calling)
SUNMOD
Listen Judas (no ad hominem as i relate to some of your post from years sgo that have nothing to do climate but the fact that you are a sellout to your own people in favor of ‘mine ‘ and the fact that you did NOT leave Tony’s blog after being wrong though you promised and i had to remind you several times)
The only reason why wildfires are more likely is because they changed the MO to increase fuel load in the woods – against all common sense.
In Australia(where they also play the fuel load game) they caught almost 200 Arsonists during the wildfires.Considering how unlikely it is to catch an arsonist the real number of Arsonists is easily 2000+.
Still they did not achieve a new record inburned acreage (though they claim)
Your own propandist just recently announced ( indirectly but 100% clear),that the number of wildfires should go down as result of AGW.
They did this when they tried to find an excuse why the sea levels don’t rise as predicted and claimed that an increase in snow falls is compensating the massive ice loss of Greenland and Antarctica and glaciers etc.
If there is a massive increase in snowfalls than there is a massive increase in rainfalls- there is no other option.
And rainfall will even increase more than snowfall as the increase in snow surface results in more evaporation and sublimation.
More rainfall = less wildfires.
You do not use communist strategies like activism,critical theory,alynskism or Hegelian dialectics and you don’t care when communism is being attacked therefore you are not a communist.
You are not woke as you do not show their typical bipolar behavior of instant outrage or total ignorance.You have the idalism of a woke but the fact that you are able to communicate like a human being indicates that you have a strong foundation(either a cultural or a religious)while the woke doesn’t.
And this is what makes you a far more evil person than any woke or communist.
A woke does not know how ignorant he is as he isn’t aware of his ignorance.
A communist does not know that he is a religious zealot though he blindly follows religious dogmas of the almighty state because he thinks he is an atheist.(Marx just replaced the opium of the people with crackcocaine)
You are fully aware of whar you are doing.You know 100% that AGW is full of crap and you know 100% that even if you live 1000 years that neither sea level rise will change nor that the arctic ice will disappear.
That’s why CS Carroll wrote about people with your mindset
“of all the tyrannies,a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies”
griff makes an extremely valid point.
Regardless of whether you/I agree with him or not. Regardless of whether his opinions are backed up by data that is recognized by others…………he is viciously attacked, just for having the opinion.
The mob mentality takes over and some here show no class in their targeting of griff with hate and intolerance of an opinion that contradicts theirs.
WUWT is my favorite site but this makes everybody look bad.
Let the empirical data and authentic science do the talking. The minus/- button is another option.
Just because the other side acts this way and they have control of all the narratives is no excuse.
… not attacked because of opinion.
… attacked because of lies. repeated lies. willful ignorance. and behavior unbecoming a real human being.
All this harping on to no point and for no benefit is most certainly representative of real human beings – and tribes of feces flinging monkeys.
it is representative of people that either thrive on abuse, or have no regard for others and enjoy the discomfort that they cause, or both.
(if griff is a fake poster, the “thrive on abuse” is still applicable.)
Nick has opinions. Which he backs up with argument and data.
Resource Guy, and others have opinions regarding electric cars and solar power, which they back up with argument and data.
We argue with them, and sometimes the arguments get heated. But none of them take the abuse that people like griff, Simon, nyolci.
The reason is simple, griff et. al. never defend their claims, they just make naked assertions, and if they come back at all, it’s to insult those who dare to disagree with them.
You are right, Griff. Some people here respond with name-calling. That’s disappointing, but I doubt you mind, because I suspect you use their responses to confirm your and your friends’ biases about how all skeptics act. In that regard, we only hurt ourselves.
But many people here respond with facts, and you seldom reply to them in kind. If you are really interested in converting people, or at least engaging them in thoughtful debate, you would help yourself a great deal if you would reply directly to them with factual arguments. Until you do so on a a regular basis, I will assume that you are a pot-stirrer, not someone to be taken seriously.
You can reply with facts over and over with Griff and the like.
This is very emotional to them. It feels bad, so that can’t separate.
Simon?
(I see this brought up a number of times now, for the record they are two separate people)
SUNMOD
Rubbish go do your home work just read and understand you are the activist
“The loss in Malden is a likely harbinger for more communities throughout the Pacific Northwest…”
Indeed. When you are governed increasingly by people whose low intelligence or dogma or renders them unable or unwilling to understand cause and effect, they will not do the simple things needed to prevent these kinds of disasters, like removing problem trees near power lines, regularly thinning brush to reduce fuel loads, and enacting building codes to maintain fire barriers in areas prone to wildfires.
If officials have a choice of accepting responsibility for something bad that happens, or of pushing that responsibility onto the sinfulness of the entire western world, then the choice is unlikely to be difficult.
But in the end the residents might begin to wonder what they pay said officials for. They could perhaps ultimately be replaced by a soundboard.
Jit: “ But in the end the residents might begin to wonder what they pay said officials for. They could perhaps ultimately be replaced by a soundboard.”
Or a pineapple.
Most inanimate objects would do a better job than most of our politicians. Inanimate objects don’t identify the wrong problem, throw money at the wrong solution, and lay the blame on someone else.
We’d often be better off electing pineapples to office.
Wouldn’t have to pay them so much, nor would they need big offices and staff.
I almost agree with you stinkerp. Almost because one need not have low intelligence to use the excuse of the Washington governor. He is simply saying what Lucy (of Peanuts fame) said while holding a letter – “This letter says whatever happens, it is not my fault.” It nice to have “climate change” as the excuse instead of accepting that the burned down town is the fault of poor governance. State or local governments should take this experience and try and change the local rules regarding tree trimming, fire breaks or other fire suppression laws or guidelines to reduce the risk instead of blaming something that has no bearing but is a now-popular excuse for all manner of environmental dangers.
Having watered an manicure lawns or rock with minimal plantings,,
lastly houses at least 50ft apart.
it is like these CAGW types are living on a different planet because most of what I read about climate change, forest fires, sea level rise, etc., from the MSM/narrative point of view bears zero resemblance to the world I live in.
Alarmists live on the same planet as us, they are just divorced from reality, so their (unsupported) Climate Change claims make it look like they are describing another planet.
This article is exactly why the DNR in my area (and state) engages in controlled burns.
Get rid of the fuels and the danger is reduced substantially.
I will add that the smoke from that fire reached all the way to my area (NE Illinois) on the same air currents as high atltitude clouds from that direction, but just slightly ahead of them. Sorry I failed to get photos of that.
We’ve been having a minor drought in my AO, not a good thing at all, and the trees are showing it by dropping leaves very early (August!), while the grasses and other plant species have already dried out. Too much fuel to ignore the possibility that a fire could start anywhere. Down south in the corn and soybean fields, grain crops might be threatened, but less likely to produce massive fires.
Good article. Thanks for writing it!!!
Last night, the setting sun was a scarlet ball out here in SW Ohio.
And we had clouds – thick, thick, gloomy clouds! I am sad. 🙁
My father was a Fire Cheif for a rural Fite department in the last seventies and till he died in 1987. There were a number dry years then one summer combines were catching on fire constantly as so would the wheat,. One farmer lost the combine and two four wheel drive tractors. The combine started the fire the tractors were to plow the field after the wheat was picked up. The combine started the fire the tractors choked out trying to cut a fire break through the wheat. Losses one combine two tractors on look to ha only a tire burn out but the transmission was toast and fourth acres of wheat.
In the mid 2000 I had just moved away from a town that had a prairie fire a few miles out of it the fire ran across pasture fields, a national park,wilderness areand an Indain reservation it went over a hundred miles it missed the few towns in that area, Farmhouse and outbuilding were lost. The firecovered a hundred miles being driven by45 mile an hour straight wind gust were faster. Such winds in North Dakota are common, I drove in one set Wednesday now that I live in Arizona I out of practice driving in those conditions. I spent eleven years living in one small town out there the winds we so bad I had to tie up my garbage can. Those that did not had their blow down the street and across a farmer fiejd.
From the article: “So even if the fuels had been wet before the event, they would have become sufficiently dry to burn due to the strong winds that day. The preceding weather and climate conditions were not relevant.”
I think that sums it up nicely. It was the strong winds, not Human-caused Climate change that caused the disaster.
But the strong winds are a result of (Anthropogenic) Climate Change (TM).
That’s what alarmists would have us believe, but there’s no evidence for a claim that CO2 is making the winds stronger in California.
Probably should have ended it \sarc.
I knew you were being sarcastic. That’s why I used the term “alarmists” instead pointing at you in particular. Someone who wasn’t familitar with you might not have known that, but you have now set the record straight. 🙂
I am as concerned about global warming as any rational person, but we need to start with facts and not hype and exaggeration.
So you are concerned about a warmer world, with more rain, more arable land, and longer growing seasons. Besides that, the world is greener due to the effect increased CO2 has on photosynthesis. Links here and here
The claim that increased CO2 is a world-wide existential threat is without merit.
With the exception of increased CO2, most everything that is claimed has happened before, or has been on going for centuries.
This is why Cliff Mast is still welcome here. He believes mankind is almost entirely responsible for any warming we may have had in the past century or so (I differ in that first of all I find ANY warming unprovable given the state of available data, but even if it is warming I blame mankind for only 2%-4% of it), but he is willing to use facts to support his claims and won’t make claims he can’t support with data. So, well done Mr. Mast, I look forward to many more of your posts!
Cliff Mass: “TELL ME WHAT I HAVE GOTTEN WRONG TECHNICALLY”.
Please change this to ‘SHOW ME….’
The critics will gladly waste breath TELLING you that you are wrong.
They’ll never be able to SHOW that you are wrong.
As Michael Mann and many other have shown, in the lumpy, vague, erratic, convoluted, limitless world of climate change someone will always be glad to tell people things that “just ain’t so”.
Could not follow you… Is M. Mann SHOWING us or TELLING us about hockey sticks?
You know, English is not my mother tongue, so please explain how can you “SHOW” something to someone without “TELLING” this someone something? Drawing, sketching on a piece of paper? Last time I checked, that was also equivalent to “TELLING” a story…
Yes, I know that in some power contexts someone big-dog can say to someone smaller-dog “I am not asking…, I am telling you…”, meaning “giving you an order”. But, I may be wrong, I would suppose in earnest that in the context of an explanation or a demonstration is would be rather awkward to (ab)use the meanind of “telling” so that it would become different from “explaining”, “saying”,… “SHOWING”,…
Hi Joao:
What he is saying is that talk (telling) is easy.
Proving (showing) is hard.
The word “show” is also a way of saying “illustrate” of “demonstrate” which are ways of saying “explain”. English has an enormous vocabulary, much derived from other languages, and then used carelessly. Yes, Joao, there are multiple ways of expressing oneself in English, and often we do not make the best word choice possible.
Thank you.
English is a great language! And the multiple acquisitions from other languages gives it an extraordinary versatility for expressing nuances.
Apparently, the fact that many words in English have similar meanings, and many words can have quite different meanings in different contexts is the reason that poetry in the English language is particularly effective.
Puns too.
When I see the same article written in several languages, I’ll sometimes compare the length of the two articles. Inevitably the English version will be the shortest. That’s because so many times English has a word for that, you don’t have to use a phrase to express what you are thinking or feeling.
I’m pretty sure that English has the largest vocabulary of any of the modern languages.
Yes. Large vocabulary and simplified grammar. I used to make an exercise, translating something that I had written in Portuguese into English and check the percent reduction in number of words (around 25 %; sometimes I could reach 30 %). And also, translating something from English into Portuguese trying to keep the same number of words: the best I could was about 5 % bigger, but with a great deal of work: as a rule, English to Portuguese texts “grow” 1/3 or 1/4 in number of words.
And the proponents of CAGW / CCC will change the meaning of words to fit their narrative. “We’ll just redefine peer review”.
“Showing” requires supporting data.
” “Showing” requires supporting data. ”
Not always, according to the Oxford English Dictionary… Sometimes it means “displaying”, sometimes simply “exhibiting”, sometimes only the appearance of something…
Failing to maintain a defensible space around houses has nothing g to do with climate change, unless it is someone so concerned about CO2 emissions they do not want to fire up a weed whacked or chainsaw, in which case it would be fear of climate change being a cause.
Whacker
damn autocorrect
Well, “weed wacked” is a little more poetic and descriptive of many in today’s society!
I have my suspicions that whoever at Apple wrote the code for autocorrect may have been in that state.
The state of California? 🙂
(I’m an escapee from California. I took a job here near Wright-Patterson AFB, with the initial intention of returning to CA when I retired. By the time that happened, CA had gone over the liberal waterfall and I decided to just stay where I was rather than subject myself to the changes that had transpired while I was gone.)
I am waiting for the day when this headline finally gets printed in CA:
Hoarder House goes up in flames! City inspectors cite Climate Change as culprit.
I don’t think I will have long to wait. (sigh)
…and the homeowners body, discovered in the rubble with smoke-filled lungs, was certified as a death from “COVID-19”!
Unfortunately, a number of media outlets (e.g., the Seattle Times and NPR), politicians, and activist groups are consistently distorting the truth. There are few better examples of this problematic behavior...
Yes, there are more.
Some time ago, Kip Hansen posted about this organization:
Covering Climate Now
Here’s their ten tips for media outlets: LINK
In other words, “… Seattle Times and NPR…” and etc. probably just copy/pasted from a screed put out by “Covering Climate Now”.
Very likely.
Here’s the link to their Partner” list
So that’s who we can blame for the nonsense quoted by the New Zealand herald and TVNZ! Do they pass it on to the Guardian?
Climate change has become an indispensable political crutch.
Whenever something goes wrong, blame climate change.
Or Trump, or Bush
Why? Because it is what they do!
Seriously, has there ever been a time when major media and politicians weren’t distorting the truth? And flat out lying doesn’t count.
Misinforming people for money, power and control. That is what they do.
But to do so, they have to fool people into believing that they are honest, helpful and trustworthy. Don’t buy that lie! You will end up swallowing all the rest of the lies.
“…a number of media outlets (e.g., the Seattle Times and NPR), politicians, and activist groups are consistently distorting the truth.
Why Are Major Media and Politicians Distorting the Truth?
To achieve political goals you have to (distort the truth/data to) have the right ‘facts’ and the right language must be used to back them up.
“The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what [climate] scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.
…
Other terms that have been updated, including the use of “wildlife” rather than “biodiversity”, “fish populations” instead of “fish stocks” and “climate science denier” rather than “climate sceptic”.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment
It’s all very mediaeval and religious with century 21 technology to spread the distorted word – and to burn heretics at the stake in public..
I have no doubt that climate / environmental guilt and belief in redemption have replaced traditional Christian religious adherence.
Many people just need something, anything to “believe” in.
AGW is a lesson in how to keep the “narrative” alive. When Global Cooling started heating up the narrative turned to AGW. Hence Global Warming. Then with the pauses Climate Change was settled on because it is all encompassing and the there’s no need to change the narrative anymore. Weather is something all can relate to and calling it climate is an easy segue. Technology has tamed climate for man but we still are subject to changes in weather ….. everyone understands that yet the MSM produces propaganda that disregards history and facts constantly. And that’s how propaganda works … keep telling the lies often and loud enough until they become believable.
Walden is just down highway 230 from here and had three large fires around it last September, so I was disappointed to read the fire in question was actually the “Malden” fire. However, beyond that little quibble, the article was excellent. Excellent, Mr. Mass.
NPR is totally bought in to the Columbia Journalism School’s initiative to blame everything on climate change. So much so that I can’t listen to them most of the time anymore.
It’s time NPR stopped getting my tax money. I don’t want to pay for leftwing propaganda.
They should be defunded, along with NIH and CDC.
I remain amazed by folks that continue to think that truth has something to do with the global warming express train. Inslee gets re elected by proclaiming the “problem” and saying “Only I can save you.” and Mann gets fame and money from the same. Global warming for many is just business and truth it’s innocent victim.
Any statistics junkies want to compare prevalence and size of wildfires in red states and blue states? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a trend of increasing size for blue states largely due to mismanagement.
The fiction that is AGW,,,
Cliff, you make a good case, but these kinds of arguments hold no sway whatsoever with the alarmist climate juggernaut. It cannot be stopped except by glaciers, and they move rather slowly.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/74643/#74644
On the Western drought and wildfires that have been caused “Climate” fires:
Western Drought-La Nina forecast Fall/Winter 2021/22
Started by metmike – Aug. 14, 2021, 11:42 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/73659/
We know what caused this WEATHER.
Not man made climate change/global warming as you’ve been told but the complete opposite. COOL waters and a La Nina signature(cooling waters) in the East/Central tropical Pacific, that started showing up in Spring 2020.
These cooler waters were/are associated with the slight global cooling that we experienced the last 18 months. This always elevates the odds of widespread drought in the US……..like the last 2 major droughts in the Cornbelt in 2012 and the previous one in 1988.
This also combined with what’s called the cool phase of the PDO(Pacific Decadal Oscillation) a -PDO.
A -PDO enhances/amplifies La Nina’s.
See several additional threads with more details on this at the link/post above.
The weather Cliff Mass describes is known locally as Palouse winds or “Palousers”. They occur every August and September and blow from E. Washington across Idaho to Montana, Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain western front. Palousers drove the infamous 1910 Big Burn and numerous other late summer fires, which happen every year.
The reason for the winds, or so the theory goes, is cold fronts moving SE from Canada meeting warm fronts moving NE from the Southwest. The crashing fronts form a low pressure venturi that sucks air into 50+ mph winds. The Big Burn was not merely a fire; it was also a major blow-down event with thousands of acres of trees toppling in near hurricane force winds.
I don’t know if ENSO or PDO phases increase or decrease Palousers. The entire Columbia/Snake Basin/Plateau is a windy place — every year and especially in late summer.
Way back last century, I had a summer job collecting air filter samples in northern Idaho. The test was intended to characterize the ‘dust’ blown in by the winds, and they especially wanted to get data during a Palouse wind event.
When the wind storm hit, it was all we could to to keep the filters changed. We were changing the filter pads every 2 hours and getting inches of dust on each pad.
Eastern Washington state has rolling hills that are said to result from those winds, with as much as 60 ft of top soil built up.
I can believe it.
DJ
Why does the MSM distort the truth?
With climate change it’s purely for financial gain.
The high sun season in Washington State east of the Cascades is dry and hot.
If it is not burning, it is ready to burn.
Ask me how I know.
Why Are Major Media and Politicians Distorting the Truth?
Because the truth doesn’t sell ads or gain votes.
Or gain so-called subsidies (bribes) during a convenient pandemic.
Handmade tales with benefits.
If I laugh any more or the smile on my face gets any bigger, the top of my head may fall off…
Quote:”And activist scientists like Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt make nasty tweets”
nasty tweets – Good <Expletive> Grief – why have these folks and ‘most everybody reverted to childhood/
There’s yer problem… not CO2 or trapped heat or methane or diesel or pollution.
We actually seem to be living like the Lord of the Flies
The purpose of EVERY lie is control.
NPR has been deliberately and intentionally misinforming its audience about climate for the last two decades.
Its climate propaganda efforts have doubled and redoubled in the last couple of years to the point where it really has become a farce.
When it comes to climate, NPR is completely dishonest. The whole operation is full of bald-faced liars.
They have been deliberately and intentionally misinforming its audience about pretty much everything for a lot longer than that.
It amazes me how much evidence you need to even suggest that attributing wild fires to climate change could goad a spotty activist to light a fire. Considering how much damage a single deliberate action taken at the optimum time will cause, you would expect that people’s experience with children is enough. But attributing wildfires to a degree of higher temperatures, slightly drier conditions or an extra 1 mph wind is fine.
Thank you, Cliff, for being a voice of sanity.
It’s interesting that the western states governors insist on blaming their states’ fires on the dreaded Climate Change, when in reality all of the western states have whole biomes and species that have special adaptations to fire, indicating that it has been around for a long time before mankind’s contributions became problematic. The California State Tree, the Giant Sequoia, is a specific case in point. The Sequoia actually depends on fire to propagate — the bark is fire-resistant and, like our own Douglas Firs, the trees drop lower branches to minimize potential loss to fire. The cones are opened by the heat of fires, which also prepare the way for the seedlings by clearing the undergrowth. And some of the standing trees are over 2,000 years old; so the adaptations they show indicate that fire was a factor well before humans played a part. CA’s own Department of Forestry has a brochure about the Sequoias’ adaptations to fire, in fact. By preventing fires, we have done the ecosystem a disservice — fire is a natural phenomenon, and preventing it disturbs the natural cycles of the ecosystem.
It’s all my fault , I keep driving my v8 suv and the CO2 obviously has drifted into forest areas , but never mind those private jets , their CO2 just goes up in the air out of space .
Since no one believes in God anymore, Acts of God need to be blamed on human behavior.
Weather events that have always happened are just the latest example of heaping guilt on people, who then demand that government do something, anything to save them. Of course, the only power government actually has is to raise taxes and levy fines, which they immediately do.
Why anyone thinks higher taxes will save them is beyond me, since we all should have been saved decades ago if that were actually the case.
Doesn’t matter, because…um…er….SCIENCE! (signed leftists of all stripes).
Gov Inslee is willfully ignorant of the history of his own state. Fires used to be the norm, not the exception. That’s why the landscape is dominated by conifers.