Much of the American West is on fire, illustrating the dangers of a climate of extremes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wildfires-american-west/2020/09/08/2e9bd2a6-f20b-11ea-a852-eb7526c580f4_story.htm

Source:  By Scott Wilson, The Washington Post. 

Excerpt: Much of the American West is burning. Although the traditional fire season has yet to begin, parts of a half-dozen states from coastal California to the Rocky Mountains are being charred by more than 70 wildfires fed by tinder-dry vegetation, record heat and blustery winds that kicked up Tuesday across the region. Smoke has cast a worrisome pall over vast areas of terrain, turning the sky an ominous red and threatening those with allergies and asthma. ...the fires have set in motion a seasonal displacement of weary Westerners, many of whom are now accustomed to packing “go bags” each late-summer season when forced evacuations have become commonplace. In California, where two dozen major wildfires are burning, a new round of fast-moving blazes sparked up over the weekend just as thousands of people began returning to homes evacuated only last month because of a different set of fires. More than 2.2 million acres have burned in the state this year, a modern record with the traditional fire season still weeks away. ...California’s Creek Fire, which is burning fast through expansive dry stands of trees on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, destroyed half the homes in the tiny town of Big Creek over the weekend and stranded dozens of holiday campers along the shores of a reservoir. At the same time, a wildfire in Washington state wiped out much of Malden, a town of 200 people south of Spokane in the state’s far east. The National Weather Service on Tuesday placed Northwest and southwestern Oregon under an extreme fire danger warning, the first time southern Oregon has been the subject of such a warning, according to the Oregon Climate Office....