I am Anti-Wildfire!

Do wildfires emit greenhouse gases? You bet they do - and how.

According to the American Forest Resource Council, on average, one acre of burned land emits six tons of CO2 and other GHGs. Depending on the fire's severity and the type of brush, up to 100 tons of CO2 can be released into the atmosphere. This figure does not include emissions from fire suppressants. Somewhere in the area of 400,000 acres of California land have burned so far. That equals 2,400,000 TONS of GHGs emitted into the atmosphere in just the last 7 days.

I wondered how this figure compared to CO2 emissions from vehicles. According to the EPA, on their subversively complicated "Emission Facts: GHG Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle" page:

127,721,000 is the number of cars on the road in the United States.
73,775,000 is the number of light trucks on the road in the United States.

This is a total of 201,496,000 cars and light trucks in the US. Multiplying that by 5.2 metric tons (the average used by the EPA of one vehicle's annual CO2 emissions) =

1,047,779,200 metric tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by cars and light trucks in the United States annually.

So, it does appear to me that wildfires are a significant source of CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases and the AFMC and tap-happy Senator Craig would agree on the specific point that forest fire management policy changes are necessary to any meaningful climate change policy. This is a pretty new concept to me because I never read about forest fire management as an important facet of global climate change policy. Even so, the fact that wildfires emit CO2 is hardly an excuse to not bother reducing our own CO2 emissions as Senator Craig has obliquely suggested. It's everyone's problem Senator, not just the trees'.

San Diego is Burning

Another California first - a wildfire holiday. I never knew such a thing even existed. All county schools are closed as are many businesses, as people scurry home to save their houses and properties from several raging wildfires. While the coastline is not in danger of wildfire, the entire county and most of southern California is clouded over in thick smoke. White ash has blanketed every outdoor surface like snow and it smells like winter and burning fireplaces, only it's hot and sunny and your eyes burn whenever you step outside.

The good thing is there has only been one casualty and few injuries thus far related to the widespread fire - a fire some are calling the worst in recent history. A lot of credit is due to the preparedness of state and county emergency officials who have been doing an amazing job. Qualcomm Stadium has been turned into an evacution center and is so well prepared, they can take evacuees with pets, even horses! They have to stay in the parking lot of course because their horse butts won't fit into the seats, but still! That's huge. Fortunately, all the animals at the SD Zoo's Escondido Wild Animal Park have been safely evacuated and are out of harm's way.

The bad thing is that hundreds of homes and properties have been destroyed with still more devastation to come. The Santa Ana winds blow hot dry air from the desert with gusts as high as 60 mph so there's little that firefighters can do until the wind dies down. Meanwhile, people who have been evacuated are left wondering whether their homes still stand. One of the local news anchors returned to his neighborhood in an evacuated area, just in time to watch his home burn to the ground on live television. In the telecast, he sadly and dutifully reported "There goes the patio. There goes the garage. There goes the pool..." Multiply his experience by a few hundred.

I'm having technical issues, so instead of a pic, here's a link to a space photo of what these wildfires look like from space. Unfortunately, Mexico - which is where I decided I would go if the fire reached me - also seems to be on fire!