Tinderbox

Apr 25, 2022 | 8:00 pm ET

By Kate Queram

My husband and I took a trip to the West Coast in July 2018, when I was pregnant and desperate to escape the oppressive humidity of D.C. We flew into San Francisco on a clear blue afternoon, but by day three, the skies had turned nuclear. That summer was the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, and while we never encountered flames on our trip, their presence loomed large in the eerie yellow clouds overhead.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about wildfires before that. We grapple with our own vestiges of climate change here on the opposite coast, including stifling summers that last for six months and make it hard to focus on much of anything else. But it’s harder to shake once you’ve walked under the smoky skies. This isn’t a competition of who has it worse, obviously — it’s more like a race to the bottom. Everybody loses, and the farther we fall, the harder it is to breathe.

The Big Takeaway

So, uh, happy Monday! If you’re new here, consider this your introduction to my perpetual angst about climate change. It’s real, it’s happening, we know exactly how to fix it and we just keep … not fixing it. That’s always made me anxious, but it’s a thousand times worse now that I have children whose futures hinge on widespread action that so far has yet to materialize in any meaningful way. I have little optimism to offer on this topic, is what I’m saying.

It’s well-informed pessimism, at least. Historically, the U.S. has done essentially nothing to address climate change. President Joe Biden pledged to change that with his ambitious climate agenda, which has largely gone nowhere. That’s partially due to outside factors like court decisions and the existence of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (technically D-W.Va.), but it’s also because of Biden’s decisions, including a recent call for more domestic fossil fuel production to combat rising gas prices.

There’s always been a finite amount of time to deal with this problem, and the deadline looms ever closer. Three weeks ago, scientists warned that “a litany of broken climate promises” from governments and corporations have placed us “firmly on track toward an unlivable world.” (You may not have heard much about this, thanks to the breathless coverage of a slap-fight at the Oscars.)

Listen to the dude! (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

I’d urge you to imagine that world, but after decades of inaction, you’re already living in it. It has bigger and costlier hurricanes; and longer and more severe droughts and heat waves. It has hotter temperatures, more precipitation and increased coastal flooding. In that world, it’s normal to see devastating wildfires turning “landscapes into tinderboxes.”

As proof that this is our reality, allow me to present some fire-specific statistics. So far this year, 20,262 wildfires have scorched 865,290 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center — well above the 10-year average of 14,552 fires and 669,042 acres. Eleven new large fires were reported this past weekend alone, including three in New Mexico that sparked within 24 hours and scorched more than 100,000 acres of meadows, villages and forests, per Source NM.

New Mexico burning on Saturday. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann/ Source NM)

They’re already among the 20 largest fires in state history. Another 17 burned over the weekend, setting ablaze 16 of the state’s 33 counties. In a typical April, New Mexico averages about six fires. Officials warned Saturday that the unprecedented risk would likely endure for months, far longer than the typical fire season.

“It is only April, and yet we are seeing fire spread that we’ve only ever seen in this state … in late May and June,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said at a Saturday briefing. “So our risk season is incredibly and dangerously early … we have a longer, more dramatic and quite frankly dangerous, significant fire season ahead of us.”

The fires destroyed an estimated 200 structures, prompting evacuations in the northeastern corner of the state. Eric Maestas fled his home with his family on Friday, then heard from neighbors that it had been destroyed. They’d lived there for 40 years, he said. Last year, they saw the river on their property run dry for the first time. This year’s fire was the fastest he could recall.

“The smoke was, like, very intense there for like a couple of days, even before it reached us,” he said. “But it’s fine. We’re all alive.”

A house on fire in Louisville, Colorado, last December. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

Other families stayed put, including an estimated 300 people in the northeastern town of Mora, a census-designated area with less than 1,000 residents. Flames were expected to cover the town by lunchtime on Monday, unless snow from Colorado dampened their power, state Rep. Roger Montoya told Source NM.

Montoya made a final trip into Mora on Saturday to implore residents to head to safety. Most of the holdouts are farmers who have owned their land for generations and benefited from land management programs after the U.S. conquest of the region.

“That’s why it is so sad to see this happening here,” he said. “This is literally all we have. We fight for this land, and this is where we want to be. And that is what brought these men into tears.”

Some stayed by circumstance rather than decision. In Nebraska on Saturday, Robert Byrnes was in the car with his family when a wall of flames appeared on the horizon, roaring north. They headed home to their farm and watched the fire from the top of a hill, thinking it would miss them. Then, suddenly, there it was, the Nebraska Examiner reported.

Fire on the Byrnes farm. (Photo by Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)

“I was out there with a garden hose trying to keep it off, but there was no way,” Byrnes said. “It was on me so fast.”

The house was destroyed, along with two cars and years of family photographs and mementos. Eight dogs died, but a herd of goats and other livestock survived. But the family is safe. They plan to rebuild.

“There were some miracles out there,” Byrnes said Sunday. “It could have been a lot worse.”

State of Our Democracy

A long-time GOP activist filed last week to run for the Michigan Senate as a Democrat, weeks after using his radio show to say that “a family should be a white mom, white dad, and white kids.”

“Trucker Randy” (real name: Randy Bishop) made the racist remark on a March episode of “Your Defending Fathers” where he also complained about TV commercials “trying to take away the male’s masculinity.”

“Every single white guy in a TV commercial now is either stupid, dependent on a woman or a complete rumbling, stumbling, bumbling idiot,” said Bishop, who has been convicted of felony fraud twice and is currently facing charges of disturbing the peace. “White men, especially middle-aged white men, are complete idiots in these commercials.”

Bishop is a Big Lie believer who previously ran for office as a Republican, chaired a county Republican party and lost his Facebook privileges more than once. He said in 2020 he wasn’t sure why his pages had been shut down, because he “did nothing wrong.” (Except there was that one time he communicated with one of the guys who threatened to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, maybe that’s something?)

The point is that the dude is not a Democrat. Most likely, he’s trying to keep Democratic voters from changing their party affiliation so they can vote for moderate candidates in the state’s Republican primary. (Banking on the fact that people will hate you enough to vote against you is … certainly a strategy!)

Whatever the reason, the Michigan Democratic Party is not amused. They do not claim him! They will not support his campaign! They “find it deeply insulting that he would dare to put a ‘D’ next to his name!”

Republicans don’t appear to have denounced Bishop or his strategy, though honestly why would they? This allows them to continue appearing on his radio show without having to answer for him. Bipartisanship! Win/win! I weep!

More of a mixed bag: Congressional map drawn by Kansas Republicans is unconstitutional, Wyandotte County judge rules … (Pennsylvania) More diverse candidates are on the ballot for Harrisburg in 2022, but Latinos are largely left out … (Mississippi) After some parents raise concerns, Madison County Schools places books in ‘restricted circulation’ … (Missouri) Kansas City police feel heat after Eric Greitens posts campaign video showing ride along