At least Nero didn't set Rome ablaze.

As long as the cause of death is heat stroke, I guess you could say that I'm blogging in the "dead of the winter" here in Texas....

The week before last, while I was out of state, I noticed news stories about wildfires in Texas. Living in the normally humid, southeastern corner of the state, I wasn't too terribly concerned for my own house, but I did follow the stories a little bit. Even so, I was surprised on my return by what I saw on freeway signs on the way home from the airport. Usually, the signs report travel times or road conditions, but then and now they flash something like "STATEWIDE FIRE DANGER", followed by "BURN BANS IN EFFECT".

I doubted that there was much danger in the Houston area until yesterday, when I read this story in the Houston Chronicle. Brazoria County lies just south of Houston.

An outdoor burning ban in Brazoria County got off to a blazing start when a grass fire consumed about 120 acres and a marsh fire burned 500 to 700 acres.

Grass in most of Texas is so dry, said Mahlon Hammetter, of the Texas Forest Service, "that virtually any source of a spark can start a wildfire."

The hot exhaust of a small tractor is being blamed for the fire near the Suncreek Ranch subdivision in Rosharon on Thursday.

That fire started at noon, about 30 minutes after Brazoria County Judge John Willy ordered that there be no outside burning in unincorporated parts of the county.

In another case, what had been planned as a contained marsh fire at the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Brazoria County became an uncontrolled fire Thursday when it jumped a fire control line. [bold added]

Hmmmm. Reminds me a bit of the "fallacy of self-exclusion" here, as in, "Don't play with matches -- unless you're with the government."

If there is a burn ban in effect, why is anyone deliberately starting marsh fires? This reminds me of the huge fires that burned out of control near Los Alamos a few years back. Although a similar planned fire (called a "controlled burn") was believed directly responsible at the time, it turned out that a fire fighting tactic called a "backfire" was the immediate cause.

Of course, a backfire wouldn't have been necessary had a controlled burn not been initiated under dry, windy conditions in the first place,as the link above states.

The investigators' findings do not change the fact that the National Park Service, by igniting the fire, set in motion the chain of events that led to the disaster. At a press conference in Santa Fe last week, Babbitt said that the Park Service was taking full responsibility for the blaze.

Thank heavens the government is looking out for all of us patsies out here who don't know when not to burn things outside. Sheesh!

-- CAV

Updates

1-9-06: Corrected typos.