Posted on May 10 at 12:41 a.m.

I suppose these cleaning instructions are aimed primarily at dwellings that got a close-up, heavy dose of smoke and ash, but there are probably paranoid germophobe types living in places that didn't get much smoke or ash but who are now scrubbing the heck out of everything because of this article. :-)

I agree with VoiceOReason--The disinfecting advice does seem odd--how could there be live germs in smoke and soot when that stuff was just in a hot fire, which would surely have killed everything?

On Investigators Seek Info About Blaze’s Origin

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Posted on May 6 at 10:54 p.m.

Anyone know if there is a map showing the extent of burned areas and actively burning areas? I saw things like this for previous fires, and although it would be impossible to keep it perfectly up to date, it was really informative.

On Evening Report from Las Canoas and Beyond

Posted on July 6 at 3:20 p.m.

I don't doubt the climate change science, and it is frightening, but looking specifically at the Gap Fire, it has been said that much of the chaparral involved is 50-something years old. Isn't the historical, natural fire cycle for chaparral about that long, anyway? (Don't infer from this that I think we should be just letting it burn unchecked. The firefighters are heroes!)

If you're looking for individual fires to hold up as evidence of climate change, more-compelling examples would be locations burning earlier in their cycle (or more often) than they used to. Probably such examples exist among the huge number of fires that have started this summer.

On Gap Fire: A Sign of Global Warming?