Scarred Land 2: Apocalypse in real time, wildfires in Western United States

 Ongoing wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington State have again shocked the wider United States and the world. It started two weeks ago with one of the largest and loudest thunderstorms that sparked the fires in both North and South California. This is the first time that the whole of Western United States or West Coast the unofficial nickname for California and Pacific Northwest or Cascadia (for Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, Canada) are witnessing an Apocalypse in real time. This is not an exaggeration or dark humor. California has lost three million acres of land to the wildfires this year alone. That amount of land loss, displacement, destruction of whole towns Walden, Washington and parts of Medford, Oregon, south of Portland has broken another record of climatic sorrow. It has sent tens of thousands of wildfire victims racing for shelters and family members. For the victims to survivors the fires carries the same physcological and PTSD scars as a war zone would. The fires have killed 15 people in all three states and left thousands of people homeless and displaces. The governors have ordered the major national parks in the Western states closed. The parks' ancient trees which have yet to adapt to be fire resitance to the annual wildfires are also facing lost. Nature has a method for healing itself and adapting to destructive forces. The irony is controled fires are good for forest management and landscape. On Tuesday, the orange skies turning day into night over San Francisco, Portland and little towns of Malden, WA and Talent, Or and part of Washington state epitomized the climate apocalypse in real time. Once again, whole towns are being wiped off the map by fire. Keep in mind, twenty five years ago, wildifres never expand with the amount of devastation and be impossible for firefighters to control even with the latests equipment and months of preparation. The next concern once the fires are extinguish and die down are the mudslides, heavy rains leading to soil erosion and the lingering contaminated air quality. Another element that doesn't carry a mention is desertification caused by frequent large scale fires and droughts. Among the three Western states, California is arid especially inland CA while Cascadia ie Oregon and Washington state is forested. Both states do have small deserts within their borders. The Institute for Economics and Peace warned in its latest report that a 1 billion people could be displaced due to climate change by 2050. The IEP doesn't need to look too far into the future to see the lasting affects of climate displacements as it's already affecting the United States among other countries. The wildfire smoke reached New York City and other parts of East Coast earlier this week. It is now in Europe. The smoke is on around the world tour. It won't come as a surprise if the smoke reaches Asia.

The Year of Choas 

 The year 2020 continues to be an insane and unforgiving year. The four horseman of the Apocolypse seem to have manifest themselves in the form of Covid (pestielance and death), war (wildfires, politics), famine (Covid lockdown hysteria that followed) coinciding with a brutal election cycle that has worn down the ordinary Americans who are suffering and fighting through the wildfires, viruses, lockdowns, high unemployment and a surreal avalanche of political choas that will not go back into its pandora's box. The fires have exhausted everyone including the new internally displaced people across the Western U.S. The people will tell you they have never experienced the orange skies in their entire lives. Even the non religious Californians, Oregonians, Washingtonians thought the apocalypse had arrived with everything else occurring this year. The Santa Ana and Diablo Winds both notorious for its high velocity has cleared toxic smoke and allowed for some relief from the orange night. But the smoke has drifted to neighboring states of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, British Columbia, Arizona and Saskatchewan giving them the worst air quality in the world. The Covid lockdown had cleared up some worst polluted places in the world ie Delhi, India in a two-month lock down period. The mentioned states have sent firefighters to the Western United States to fight the fires. Firefighters and National Guard continue to exert themselves into exhaustion to keep the fire at bay. In Oregon two wildfires are attempting to coalesce into a massive fire.

 

As the fires continue, despite thousands of firefighters including prisoners battling the blazes from San Diego on the border with Mexico all the way to Seattle, Mother Nature's elemental war has become far lethal each year. Every year the fire grow worst and seem to rachoet the intensity to the tenth power. 

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