Clear Skies

[Dick Berg]

The news about the fires continues to be so bad, and I know the skies in the west are just awful these days. I hardly have anything to complain about so I'm not complaining, but I thought I'd show you our clear skies here in central New York - about 4 magnitudes of extinction - can hardly see the summer triangle through the haze. No observing tonight, even though it's "clear."

ClearSkies.jpg
Half an hour before sunset

[Bob Denny]

THe smoke has covered places across the whole country. I can't ever remember that many forest fires in that short a time span, and with no thunderstorms in the area for weeks. I want to know what started all of those fires, and also how the Oregon Department of Forestry allowed the forests to get into such bad shape. Forests are a fire-dependent ecology. They absolutely must burn to live. But preventing natural burns and preventing manual thinning creates a man-made tinderbox. Awful.

[Eric Dose]

Of California's forests, 57% are national, 3% are state.

[Bob Denny]

Interesting. I think in Oregon 1/3 are private/state.