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A comment on Years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western megafires of today. Parent comment

Re:Years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western ... by fathompinball on Thursday August 05, 2021 @11:25AM (#28075039)
>California is in a megadrought.

To be fair, we had big, honkin', town-killin' fires back when it rained and snowed more than average for decades.

It's hard to tell how much is due to drought, how much to a shift from snow to rain, how much is home development, how much is homeless people torching off areas (more than you'd like to think).

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Re:Years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western ... by PaulDavisThe1st on Thursday August 05, 2021 @11:33AM (#28075146)
The drought began in about 1999. The wet years in the two decades since then have not changed the drought. Soil moisture levels across the SW of the US are at their lowest levels in 1200 years.

So, maybe you're referring to an earlier period, in which case, cool.

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Re:Years of fighting every wildfire helped fuel the Western ... by fathompinball on Thursday August 05, 2021 @11:39AM (#28075252)
The really threatening fires we had here were in 1988, 1994, 1997, 1999.
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