Side bar: LA Times Big Burn Series

A while back I posted a link to a five-part series, Big Burn on different aspects of wildfires. I admit that it took me about three weeks to finish the series mostly because I kept saying "I'll finish it tomorrow." Well, I finished the series the other day.

I admit that when I read articles such as the LA Times Big Burn series, I don't always read the comments. There are 195 comments. I had been thinking recently that while I admire and respect the reporting job done by the reporters and the photographers, that there was probably another side to the stories they tell. It was my interest in another side of the story that lead me to read the comments. For example, in the first story, they write about the high cost of fighting fires using the example of the 2007 Zaca fire in California near Los Padres. The cost, according to the article was $140 million, in terms of monetary costs, this is at the higher end of U.S. Forest Services fires. The reporters also discussed the camps that the fire fighting crews slept in complete with what the reporters referred to as "sleeping trailers."

Of course, I know nothing about fighting wildfires. And not being from the fire prone western States, I know that I can not conceive of what these wildfires are like. We have wildfires in NJ, e.g. in the Pine Barrens, but even the biggest wildfires of recent years do not, in my opinion, compare with those in western States such as California. But the reporters were talking about a fire that cost a lot of money to fight and a fire that was near a populated area, Santa Barbara.

My point being that perhaps fires in more remote areas far from areas populated by humans are less expensive to fight. And perhaps the fire fighters don't live in the fancy and expensive sleeping trailers referred to in the article. Perhaps they sleep in tents as I had imagined. Do such fires cost less in dollars to fight than fires such as the Zaca fire? I am tempted to guess that the answer to this question is "yes", but what do I know?

So with these thoughts in mind, I decided to take the time to read all the 195 comments to the Big Burn article. Perhaps I could get some different points of view from those of the reporters. And I'm glad I did. I learned something, which is what this is all about. Some of the comments ripped the reporters and the LA Times, others applauded the LA Times. There were comments by wild fire fighters and comments by people who chose to live in areas at high risk for fires. Did I agree with all the comments, no. But I feel like the comments are an important part of this five-part series. As important as the articles, the photographs, videos, and graphics. For me, and I can only speak for myself, one of the ways that I learn about issues facing people in different parts of the country or the world is by reading the words of people who live in and/or write about issues of local concern. In this case wildfires in CA. If I want to continue learning about wildfires I know that I need to continue reading and the like, the LA Times article and comments along with the links I posted in late July regarding the basin complex fire are just a start.

So for those of you who are interested and have a couple of hours to spare, go read the comments to the Big Burn article. While they are still publicly available.