Things that make news

I read Loren's posts about digging out, and have seen others post about no power for a few days, but there sure hasn't been much posted about the terrible fires in 4
states. Yes being without power is a pain, and can be deadly. 3 or 4 feet of snow is LOTS of work for sure, but these fires have put a number of people out of business. I
am not trying to minimize you guys in the east, but just remember the ranchers in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

This morning is the first time I heard anything about those fires besides on here.

The reason for that is simple - more people were affected by the snow and power outages than were affected by the fires.

I have been talking to friends in the upper midwest about theses terrible wild fires in westrn OK, part of the Texas panhandel and S W Kansas. They have heard very little about them. Per the TV tonite, there has been 750,000 + acres burned sense a week ago Mon. Winds as high as 50 -60 MPH were recorded on several days with very low humidty.This part of OK is very rough, rugged country that is hard to get to it with brush trucks and any other fire equp t. Also very sandy and easy to get stuck in too. About no 'tilled' fields to stop a fire either.
Our local TV has had pretty good coverage of the fires.
There has been a huge amount of hay hauled into the area already, Not only the hay is gone , but there is almost all of the grass is burned too.Another thing to think about is that lots of fences are gone now too. A very sad picture.
Many cattle have had to be put down due to there hides are burned, eyes are not good and there mouths and throats are affected . One rancher had to destroy about 150 head of cattle due to fire damage. We cannot help to " feel " for these people.
Some of this info was given to me first hand from friends who live in that area and were involved in the fire fighting effort. clint

I remember several years ago (just before we got rid of satellite TV altogether) about the largest wildfire in Texas history. I never knew it was the largest until I happened to talk with a somewhat local fire fighter who went down there to help. There was almost nothing on the news.

So why does California get so much coverage? ...How many people are hit by the fires there? That's why I don't watch the news anymore. It's not about "people" - it's about ratings. And they get ratings by airing stories that affect lots of people.

Nothing much matters unless it happens in California or the upper east coast.

Bingo!

But listen to them b!tch and moan when they get the sticker shock from this at the groery store.

We in like Ohio can understand the problems in the east. We cannot understand about the fires as we cannot understand how there can be that much burnable stuff for them to be. The biggest area possible for burning would be a corn or wheat field. So what is there out there to burn?

It was on cnn about a week ago. I agree that not as much attention was paid to it, but the storms in the east affected 10's of millions, so that will naturally get more coverage.

I would like to add my opinion. When I was a kid several of the neighbors would CAREFULLY burn trash from their fields. One guy had a little water rig he built from a tractor mounted bean sprayer and an old truck body trailer with a couple of 55gal. Drums. If needed.They were old school farmers and that ash was a natural soil booster. Our government has gotten so restrictive and stupid that a small well controlled burn when things are just starting to get too dry. I am just getting myself upset. Nother rant.

The Red Flag warnings (burning bans) have been well publicized in Nebraska, but we have not heard much about the southern fires. There probably are not too many AP & UP news reporters roaming those grasslands looking for news stories. Your local news rooms and governments have to submit news stories to the national organizations to get publicity. Some local governments resist any kind of negative publicity.

On our local TV station last night there was a story about a local farmer who was headed down to Kansas with a semi load of hay to help those people out. It said he was planning a couple more trips also.

What is out there is hundreds probably thousands of square miles of dry grass and low scrub brush in a landscape that can only be utilized with grazing. The annual rainfall is much less than we in the Midwest get and the relative humidity is much less, like sometimes 10% or less. Add perpetual wind to that and a small fire can get big real fast.

We were in Florida last week, all the news on the tv was about brush fires around Naples about 50 miles? South of where we were on Captiva Island. The news babe said she had a friend on Captiva that said her car was covered with ashes. They had Interstate 75 closed. First I heard of the SW fires was on the radio yesterday, something about Wisconsin farmers sending hay down there.

I have been to eastern Ohio. You guys can burn just like us out here. I have seen 60 foot tall Cedar trees explode because of fire. Had a grass fire in 2012 that took off. Neighbor kid was sure once it got to the green Cedar trees in a shelter belt it would die. The trees just added that much more fuel to it. Its a scary situation when you are driving 40 mph trying to fight the fire. You want to stay in the black, but sometimes you just have to be in the unburned part and that is terrifying!!