Over 500 homes burned to the ground near Boulder

[grampahol]

Just a little over a week after the Bengals traveled to Denver fire swept through the towns of Louisville and Superior, Colorado. Winds over 100 mph and severe drought conditions were blamed. Luckily nobody was reported to have been killed, a handful injured though. Nasty, nasty stuff. 
People there say it was as if a giant blow torch hit the towns.. 
https://weather.com/photos/news/2021-12-30-marshall-fire-colorado-images?cm_ven=hp-slot-5

[fredtoast]

I lived in Boulder for a couple of years. Still keep up with a couple of friends who live around there. Got on Facebook to see if they were okay.

[MileHighGrowler]

It's been horrifically dry this fall/winter. We had higher than normal precipitation in the spring, so there was a lot of extra grass growth. I'm not sure what the Boulder area did over the summer to keep it trimmed back, but that extra growth always creates more wildfire issues when it's not managed well after a heavy rain spring. The same thing has happened in California several years now when they've had big rain springs and then super dry summers.

Mostly, it's just crushing to see hundreds of families completely displaced, and right after the holidays. It's not even fire damage, just complete and utter destruction down to the foundations. I live about 40 minutes south of Boulder, but know people affected. That same day, we only had winds about 25mph. And then got 6" of snow the next day. What a difference a few miles and a day can make.

[fredtoast]

If you have never lived out west you don't realize how different the weather is. It is windy out there ALL THE FREAKING TIME. That is why these fires are so severe. The high winds cause them to "spread like wildfire".

[grampahol]

Fire is only getting worse and worse in the west which has several meteorologists opining that it's leading to desertification of vast swaths of the western US in the years to come. That's not going to be sustainable for the populations living in the west. Folks can fight over water, but even that, if the trend doesn't reverse itself isn't sustainable either. You have to have sufficient precipitation, end stop. The only other solution, which seems pretty far fetched would be to pump huge amounts of water from the east where it's in over abundance, but who pays for that? I can just about envision a scenario similar to that of China where the vast majority of the population lives on or near the east coast with much of the west pretty much abandoned over time. It would certainly take a huge amount of government planning to pull it off and with how polarized our government and politics is now I don't see that kind of cooperation happening. For me personally I'm old so I won't have to deal with too much of the fall out from such scenarios, but my kids and grandkids will.. I hope they never have to go to war over water in their own country.. 
It sounds kind of nihilistic, perhaps even fantastical, but if the major cities in the west run dry the huge populations won't sit idle and wait to die of thirst or wait to be burned out in perpetuity..