In thirsty woods where underbrush is dry,
it only needs one spark from any source.
Then with blustery winds – flames grow high –
and burning embers spread with horrid force.
But Angeleno Leaders, blind to fate,
ignore the lessons from the centuries past.
Dry winds have always shown their fiery weight.
It’s nothing new! Our climate changes fast!
Hundred fifty-four years ago,
fires burned thousands of square miles.
Prepare! The lesson learned by Peshtigo,
now lost and snubbed by Angeleno wiles.
Using climate change as an excuse
displays those Leaders practicing abuse.
(The Random Poet: 01162025
www.therandompoet.com)
<<<<selected sources include: On October 8, 1871, a forest fire driven by strong winds totally consumed Peshtigo and a dozen other villages, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 people and engulfing approximately 1.5 million acres (6,000 km2). This fire, known as the Peshtigo fire, was the deadliest in American history.[10] Unidentifiable remains of hundreds of residents were buried in a mass grave at the Peshtigo Fire Cemetery. This fire started the same day as the Great Chicago fire, the Holland, Michigan fire, the Port Huron Fire of 1871, and the Great Michigan Fire (in Manistee, Michigan). The Peshtigo Fire occurred around the town of Peshtigo in northeastern Wisconsin. – wikipedia.com;
The Great Fire of 1910 – No official cause was ever listed for the 1910 fire. But 1910 was also the driest year in anyone’s memory. Snows melted early and the spring rains never came. By June, the woods were on fire in a hundred different places. A bad electrical storm the night of July 15 touched off a large number of fires in North Idaho. It was one of the largest forest fires in American history. August 20 and 21, 1910 – the fire raged across three million acres of virgin timberland in northern Idaho and western Montana. Most of the devastation occurred in a six-hour period. A forester wrote of flames shooting hundreds of feet in the air, “fanned by a tornadic wind so violent that the flames flattened out ahead, swooping to earth in great darting curves, truly a veritable red demon from hell.” www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5444731.pdf
Quote from John Steinbeck and the California climate. “I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too. And it will never fail that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It will always be that way.” East of Eden, John Steinbeck, published in 1952.>>>>