One thing that has emerged from this fire season are the words of the people who have been fighting them, and the people who have been caught by them. Consider these accounts :
From Montana Saturday :
The Jocko Lakes Fire west of Seeley Lake blew up Saturday afternoon, displaying "tremendous fire activity," fire information officer Pat Cross said, "activity firefighters haven't seen before in this part of the world."
From Utah in July :
Royce Stevens, a 32-year-old wildland firefighter from Holden, on Sunday called the Milford Flat blaze "pretty amazing." "It's fire behavior like I haven't seen before,"
From a fire fighter at the South Lake Tahoe fire in June :
"We don't have a fire season in California any more, we burn year around now."
From the relative of one of three people killed at the North Neola Fire in Utah at the end of June :
It's hard to put into words," he said after touring his father's property. "It was a phenomenon, a combination of circumstances that created a cyclone that came down on them, but it was a cyclone of fire."
From HOT SPRINGS South Dakota at the beginning of July:
"This thing blew up because of extreme hot temperatures and the winds," said Joe Lowe, South Dakota wildland fire coordinator. "It came out of the canyon with a vengeance."
From a fire near Inyo, California :
In his 20 years working in the Inyo National Forest, Louth said he has never seen such dry conditions. Before the fire started Friday, he said he was walking outside and "the pine needles were crunching under me rather than bending and giving way to my weight."
Nancy Upham Inyo National Forest :
"Fire fighters are seeing fire behavior they have never seen before - things are just igniting with a single spark"
Last year in Texas :
"We were burning from border to border for over 400 days," said Les Rogers, Texas Forest Service assistant chief regional fire coordinator for the Abilene area.