Norton, Virginia as seen from Flag Rock.

Paradise California Fire Ignores Natural Causes

by Lewis Loflin

Note 11/26/2018: The U.S. forest service over the next two months will be doing controlled burns. This will take place in several East Tennessee counties to clear forest floor trash, etc. to prevent larger fires. Hello, California!

Summary: the Paradise Ca. Fire was not caused by President Trump or Human-induced climate change. Any fool could see this coming and they did nothing to mitigate the threat. This drought problem will get worse and started 800 years ago.

This was not about "forest management" as Mr. Trump stated. It is about restrictions that make private logging and land management impossible.

This is about urban-rural interface. It is about the demand of environmentalists for "pristine" nature. This is the result of "pristine" nature doing what is natural.

The Anasazi culture (ancestors to the Pueblo) collapsed due to drying climate. This started with Great Drought of 1276-99. Drought continued to 1350 in the Southwest U.S. The Anasazi were gone by the 1500s.

Ref. Encyclopedia Britannica

Other studies note, North America experienced severe and prolonged 'mega-droughts'. That is over the last 1000 years.

Present droughts haven't exceeded earlier droughts and calls into question alarmist computer models.*

Massive drought about 1600 may also have destroyed the Roanoke Island colony. Associated severe cold killed many early Jamestown settlers. That coincided with the Little Ice Age that lasted until 1825-50.

*Ref. htts://onlinelibrary.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.1303 retrieved 11/18/2018.

The U.S. has suffered severe droughts and massive fires since the 1800s most predate the 1930s. The Great Fires of 1871 as four of the worst broke out at once including the Chicago Fire. Three fires in Michigan destroyed Holland, Manistree, and Port Huron, Michigan. The Great Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin killed 1500 and burned millions of acres.

The Great Fire of 1910 burned 3 million acres in Idaho, Washington, Montana - an area the size of Connecticut. 78 died.

The Miramichi Fire burned 3 million acres in New Brunswick and Maine killing 160.

The Cloquet Fire in Minnesota in 1918 burned 250,000 acres "killing 500 in a single day". 38 communities burned to the ground. The earlier Great Hinkley Fire of 1894 burned 200,000 acres killing 418.

The Yellowstone Fire of 1988 burned 2 million acres, zero dead. This called into question forest management methods. Letting natural fires burn off forest floor debris and trash.

Ref. 10 of the Worst Fires in U.S. History by Bryan Wilson July 13, 2013. www.mnn.com

The 1856-65 drought hit the buffalo and American Indians hard.

The 1870-77 drought caused locust swarms in the Rocky Mountains. The 1890-96 drought was a warning of the chaos coming in the 1930s.

For the 1930s read John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath'.

Urban sprawl and population growth has led to urban fire threats. A 1520 acre fire in Oakland (1991) burned 3,500 structures. The California Ceder Fire of 2003 burned 30,000 acres in San Diego.

The writing was on the wall for Paradise California when droughts began in the 1930s. They have continued since then. The 1930s was the warmest period in U.S. history. At least before they tampered with or adjusted earlier data.

The entire continental U.S. was in drought conditions including California at the time.

The present drought problem in the Southwest began in 1944 and lasted into the 1960s. In the 1950s the drought was so severe natural lakes dried up in California. Southern California suffered again in 1958-59.

Drought continued in parts of California into the early 1960s with the worst of the 20th Century in 1961. In 1976-77 the California statewide ice pack reached an all time low.

In 1960 population of Paradise was 8,268, in 2018 was 27,000. Similar population growth pushed more people into fire-prone wilderness areas. This set stage for Paradise as it did for earlier Oakland and San Diego fires. Drought conditions returned to those of 1944-62.

More population growth-drought in 2008-2009 and again 2012-2015. California burned while politicians demanded carbon taxes.

The June 2008 Humboldt Fire forced 9300 Paradise citizens to evacuate. Another July 2008 fire almost burned the community. Any fool should have known Paradise was a sitting pyrotechnic time bomb.

They refused to cut back brush and dead vegetation. Or to bring the many cheap construction homes up to fire resistant standards.

The result was Paradise and the Concow community burned to the ground.

CO2 had nothing to do with the Paradise fire or the end of the Anasazi. The region has been becoming dryer for 800 years and will continue to do so. That means proactive fire management with strict building codes.

Now back to blaming President Trump over the Paris Climate Accords. I'm sure that would have prevented this.

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