High temperatures and fast winds are fueling more than a dozen wildfires across California, forcing more than 20,000 northern California residents to evacuate their homes and communities. At least 15 people have died, and more than 200 have been reported missing, after several fires spread rapidly throughout Monday.
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| Flames from massive wildfire in Napa, California. |
The fires ignited late Sunday night and into Monday morning and have since spread over 50,000 acres across Napa and Sonoma counties, destroying at least 2,000 structures and sending at least 100 to the hospital with injuries ranging from burns to smoke inhalation. The Tubbs Fire — which is currently burning at 27,000 acres — has prompted the evacuation of at least 10 neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa, which has a population of 125,000. Two hospitals have also been evacuated after the fire jumped across Highway 101 between Sunday night and Monday morning.
Read the Think Progress story by Natasha Geiling - “Northern California firestorm ‘literally exploded,’ killing 15 and destroying hundreds of homes.”
(Those in denial about climate change simple refer to such events as the Californian fires as “natural events” and then end the conversation. They in fact leave the ambulance parked at the bottom of the cliff, collecting the victims, but never wondering, or asking what’s happening, why the people are falling over the cliff.
Falling back on repeated rhetoric, that argue that it is insensitive and unfair to the victims to discuss the potential cause of the fires while the difficulty is actually happening.
Although the Californian fires may be natural in some respects, they are clearly worsened our warming world and surely those of us not intimately involved with the catastrophe have every right to speculate on the cause of the fires and what should be happening to lessen the severity of such events - Robert McLean)
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