Still time

California is ablaze again. Three massive fires in the state are destroying homes, businesses, forests and open land. They have claimed more than 40 known victims. About 200 people are missing.

Two of the big fires are in southern California and are very close together. Malibu, the prestigious beachside town, is threatened.

The biggest fire, already claimed as the states’s most destructive and most deadly, is to the north. The town of Paradise, near Chico, has been virtually destroyed. Thousands upon thousands have been evacuated from the danger zones.

President Donald Trump criticized the spate of California fires as the result of California’s forest management practices, despite the fact that federally managed forests are also in flames. California governor Jerry Brown claims this is just the start of such conflagrations. He puts the cause as climate change and global warming.

Forest management practices and fire control theories have been debated and adjusted over the years. Still, fires are more common, larger and more destructive than in the past. One characteristic of the current fires is that they are fast moving. Many residents were caught by surprise by how quickly the fires were atop them.

It has been suggested that global warming cannot start fires. That is true, of course but it can make them hotter, faster moving and more devastating.

Drought and hot, dry winds are just part of the problems facing the firefighters in California. These conditions, it is said, will just get worse and more common.

Over recent years, California has been devoured, north and south, by unearthly fires that take all the state’s resources. Sometimes such fires diminish with the help of cool, moist weather. This has not been the case recently.

Extreme weather is almost always considered a consequence of accelerating climate change.

Even the most dire studies give us a little time to slow the change. Global warming has recently reared it ugly head on both coasts. These glimpses of the future should be enough motivation for anyone to take the changes seriously.