We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it...
....Joel William M (aka Billy Joel)

            Although there’s little doubt among anyone in Bend, the statistics back up that summer of 2021 is a scorcher for the archives.
            A look a daily weather temperatures for June and July this year compared with 2020 and 2019 shows how dramatic temperatues have risen year over year.
            There were 24 days out of 31 with highs of 90 degrees or greater in July this year, compared with 12 in that range in 2020 and only seven in 2019.
            July was no slacker in the heat index, but June of this year was especially notable. There were 15 of  30 days above 90 degrees, compared with only two in 2020 and just a single day in June of 2019. Of June days above 90, there were five reading more than 100, including a record 111 on June 29.
            August of 2021 is also showing its muscle on the heat index, with eight of the first 12 days above 90, two of those topping 100. Through the same period of August 2020, only five days were 90 or more, and none of 100 or more.
            The first 12 days of August 2019 was hotter than 2021 with seven days above 90, although none reached 100.
            Escalating summer heat is unpleasant, but the accompanying consequence of more frequent and catastrophic wildfires is making summers in Bend and much of the West more an excercise of enduring smoke-filled and dangerous air quality.
            This summer Bend had remained mostly smoke free, although wildfires to the northwest near Sisters, on the Warm Springs reservation north of Madras, south around LaPine burned in July—along with the mammoth Bootleg fire northeast of Klamath Falls all burned.

Air quality map August 13, 2021

            But as August began. smoke from various blazes, including Calfornia’s largest Dixie Fire in the northern Sierras, joined other pollution emerging with new fires from Roseberg north along the Cascades to create numerous days of unhealthy air.
            Checking the thermometer each morning is now even secondary to a look at the Air Quality Index to see if we’ve dropped back from very unhealthy to just unhealthy, with hopes that we’ll see the moderate yellow graphic shade some time.
            Coupled with the intense heat, smoke has rendered nearly empty at times the normally busy offleash dog parks and the city’s outdoor soccer and pickleball courts.          
            Then came resumption of statewide indoor mask mandates prompted by surging Covid cases and hospitalizations straining the region’s healthcare provider. This has forced restaurants and retail businesses back in a position of last winter and spring when the virus especially hammered the lodging and food service sectors.

Bend AQI: 251 August 14, 2021

 

           The noxious smoky air has impeded restaurants from maximizing outdoor dining, putting owners back into a position of having to police indoor visits from Covid and mask weary customers.
            Anyone walking along town streets was as likely to see more people masked to avoid the hazardous wildfire-fueled smoke as to stave off the relentless virus.
            Besides the temperature data for this summer, all along the west coast the wildfire and smoke hazards have extended to the Rockes and beyond, with reports of pollution carried thousands of miles to cities of the nation’s Northeastern metropolitan corridor.
            One of the most dramatic examples of fires around the globe is available in an online world view showing the west coast of the United States and raging wildfires in the taiga of Siberia, with its vegetation that once served as a buffer to capture ozone-depleting carbon.
           

Global hotspots: US West coast and Siberia

Fire in the normally colder, Siberian boreal forest is in one sense beneficial, releasing heat-induced cone seeds in a natural cycle to replenish the landscape. But instead of approximately 50-year major fire events, the cycle is now recurring almost yearly. The same phenomenon is being replicated in Alaska’s boreal landscape.
            Scientists also say the more frequent fires potentially unleash what is known as “legacy carbon,” from a thick layor of organic material that burns less frequently. And warming Siberian temperatues have caused erosion in the area’s permafrost regions with similar effect.
            Any time there’s a debate about climate change, the dialogue often devolves into whether statistics verifying a overheating planet are indicative of typical rotating“weather” patterns or a larger trend of “global warming.”
            As with much in the United States these days, the preponderance of scientific evidence often comes up against a political wall built on a foundation of disinformation, questionable statistics and cries of don’t take my “freedum,”  fitting a narrative often designed to defend fossil fuels or some elusive and fading thread of a patriotically perfect American history.
            The dialectic could be comparable to the eschewing of science that supports masks and vaccines as weapons against the deadly coronavirus – transferred to a resistance to recognize and support measures that might help solve the pandemic and climate challenges.
            “No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it,” as Billy Joel wrote.
            True, we may not have started the metaphorical looming disasters of the song.      
            Nevertheless we – government, science, industry and individuals – now own them. And by proximity and circumstance we now have an obligation to continue fighting for solutions.