December 31
Spending to fight California wildfires tops $1 billion
Los Angeles Times

Wildfire spending in California continued its upward climb this year, driven by one of the worst fire seasons in the state's history.

Almost a quarter of all the wild land that burned across the country in 2008 was in California -- roughly 1.4 million acres.

The fires, fought at a huge cost to taxpayers, failed to translate into any meaningful reforms at the state or federal level despite efforts in Sacramento and Washington.

Thin Green Line Blog: Up In Smoke
San Francisco Gate

Blame my love of the outdoors on the fact that I was born on the summer solstice, June 21. This year's solstice found me in the Lakes District of the Sierras, car camping with some friends. As we sat around the picnic table playing a game, big drops of rain began to fall and, to our surprise, were accompanied by thunder and lightning. We jumped in the car and waited it out for 15 minutes or so, then resumed our game.

December
Igniting Real Change
Forest Magazine, Winter 2009 (quarterly)

With little fanfare, one of the most significant changes in federal fire management policy in the past thirty years was authorized in March 2008. The new policy promises to end the bifurcated system of classifying ignitions as “good” fires—ones that can be managed for resource or ecological benefits—versus “bad” fires that have to be attacked with aggressive fire suppression. The new integrated approach will minimize the adverse impacts and maximize the beneficial effects of any wildland fire.

Mission Impossible: Ecologists agree that there is no way to win the War Against Wildfire. So why is the Forest Service spending more than ever on fire suppression?
Earth Island Journal, Winter 2009 (quarterly)

On June 21, 2008, a lightning storm ignited a pair of wildfires in California’s Los Padres National Forest, the rugged terrain of pine valleys and chaparral hillsides that frames the picturesque Big Sur coast. Within days, some 600 firefighters had converged on the area to try to contain the fires and keep them away from the hotels, cafés, and cottages that form the region’s bustling tourism industry. Not far behind the firefighters were members of the media, ready to report on the first major fires of the summer season, a ritual that in the arid West has become a kind of annual apocalypse.