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Wildfire smoke from Bootleg Fire stretches all the way to the East Coast – CNN

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Wildfire smoke from Bootleg Fire stretches all the way to the East Coast – CNN

(CNN)The massive Bootleg Fire in Oregon has scorched an area larger than Los Angeles, and it's only 30% contained. The fire is so large and is burning so hot that it's creating its own weather.

It's just one of the many blazes raging in the West; the National Interagency Fire Center is watching 80 large fires across 13 states this week -- a testament to just how destructive the US wildfire season has become.

And the effects of the fires stretch all the way to the East Coast.

Why fire is our best tool against megafires – Vox

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Wildfires 2021: Why fire is our best tool against megafires – Vox

A number of unique factors in recent seasons combined with long-term trends and created the devastating blazes. But a major reason for the massive scale of the destruction is that natural fires and burning practices first developed by Indigenous people have been suppressed for generations.

Wildfires are essential to many Western ecosystems in the US, restoring nutrients to the soil, clearing decaying brush, and helping plants germinate. Without these fires, vegetation in woodlands, grasslands, and chaparral shrublands accumulates, so more fuel is available to burn, especially when a megadrought keeps drying out the fuel, year after year. A debt to the landscape starts to mount, and when it comes due, there is hell to pay.

The beauty of the flame

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I was watching the flicker of the flames as I lit the charcoal this morning.💥 Big yellow flames as the charcoal and lighter fluid caused hydrocarbons to be split in a somewhat oxygen deprived environment producing yellow light as the carbon bonded to the oxygen producing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.🔥

Prepping the Charcoal on this rainy evening

While it’s true that carbon monoxide is a deadly poison that kills humans and animals, and exposure to elevated levels causes heart disease, out in the wilderness it quickly dissipates into non harmful levels as a substance that is a part of nature. 🌀It’s a much bigger problem in cities where there are many more sources of carbon monoxide or in enclosed areas where there isn’t a virtually unlimited supply of oxygen.👷

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I enjoy looking at the flames, the flicker and the warmth. Fire produces light, and warmth, it can be used to cook🍔 or even dispose of burnable waste.🛢 Who doesn’t like watching that styrofoam plate or plastic milk jug melt away into oblivion?

Milk Jug 2

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a fire bug. I like fire, I like camping and spending time in the wilderness. I cook with fire, and sit into the evening next to roaring fire.🔥 When I finally own a house and land, it will be out in the country where I can heat with wood, cook over fire, burn my own garbage and have bonfires.🏡

Smolders

I get that fire can be a dangerous and destructive force. 👿Fire can pollute, smell bad, especially when burning certain noxious substances in more urbanized areas.🌟 But out in the country, the wilderness, when used safely it can be very beneficial force.