Forest Fires

First, for anyone listening to the news here, you were probably aware of a "forest fire" near San Nicolas. It is now out and, yes, it was very near the Geek Ranch. In fact, our workers helped put it out and now they think I should buy them fireman's hats. :-)

I believe this was started by someone burning their field. It is pretty typical for people to do this and, in fact, the government burns the grass along the side of the road. But, the way it is done is fairly scary. Some grass is piled up, lit and the crew goes off to another location. No one watching the fire and no fire fighting equipment in case there is a problem.

This gets a bit more scary in an area such as the Tisey reserve because there are real trees that could burn--not just your neighbor's grass as well. Fire crews are minimal here (I believe Gixia said there are less than 200 firemen in the whole country), equipment is close to non-existent and there are no water systems in rural areas.

I don't have a solution (other than the obvious, "throw money at it") but I did want to bring this up as a concern. If nothing else, being aware of the problem and cautioning people when they are going to burn a field is in order.