According to the US Government, the US used to have ten times as much burn acreage as at present.
In the conterminous United States during the preindustrial period (1500- 1800), an average of 145 million acres burned annually. Today only 14 million acres (federal and non-federal) are burned annually by wildland fire from all ignition sources.
www.nwcg.gov/branches/ppm/fpc/archives/fire_policy/docs/chp1.pdf
h/t to chris y
The media is reporting about how bad this year has been. Just trying to gin up something that could be caused by global warming, or whatever it is called now.
This year has had the fewest forest fires to date since 1984.
“We don’t know the exact cause,” said Todd McNeal, fire chief in Twain Harte, a town that has been in the path of the flames. But he told a community meeting that it was “highly suspect that there might have been some sort of illicit grove, a marijuana-grow-type thing.”
“We know it’s human caused. There was no lightning in the area,….”
………
In 2009, a huge fire that burned 90,000 acres in the Los Padres National Forest near Santa Barbara was set by a campfire from an illegal marijuana grow, Forest Service investigators concluded at the time. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said the operation was run by a Mexican drug cartel. Deputies reported finding 30,000 marijuana plants and an AK-47 assault rifle in a remote canyon near where the wildfire started. They also found piles of garbage, propane tanks and a charred stove.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_23986627/rim-fire-did-illegal-marijuana-growers-start-blaze