If anyone is curious, we are unaffected by the massive fire that destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Superior, Lafayette and other communities south of Boulder and north of Denver, Colorado. We are miles away. The fire was said to be started by high winds that downed a power pole, igniting the blaze. It spread at high speed, engulfing structures. Thousands of people had to be evacuated in short order. Amazingly, while three people are missing, there are no known deaths at this time. That speaks highly of professional responders.
Interestingly, news I read this morning indicates that there is no downed power pole at the sight of ignition as determined by investigators. That does not necessarily speak of foul play, but could be a chain of events beginning with our old friend, human stupidity. Stay tuned.
I’ve been waiting for the Things-Are-Really-OK deniers to chime in with their faux expertise on all matters pertaining to climate. Here it is.
This from my go-to source on climate, WUWT: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/02/3-2-1-claim-colorado-wildfires-because-climate-change/
Piece of Mindful 
Like Covid is not really about public health, Climate Change/Co2 reduction is not really about earth’s environmental conditions. It’s, as with most highly propagandized “issues/problems,” about creating new (fiat) markets and new sources of “economic growth” to prevent the inevitable collapse of unsustainable, global financial systems. Here’s a snapshot of the present situation: https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/12/by-pancaking-term-loans-jpmorgan-had-30-billion-outstanding-from-the-feds-emergency-repo-loans-in-the-last-quarter-of-2019/
Once one realizes CO2 is not the enemy, but feedstock for new technologies, investment opportunities and expanded industrial production based on carbon, the pieces fall into place — the big lie starts to “make sense (dollars and cents).” I’m not making this stuff up, World Economic Forum, in partnership with the U.N. “sustainable development goals” and Agenda 2030, are clearly headed toward “$trillions” of easy money by rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/co2-as-industrial-feedstock/
Can you guess what we’ll burn next to create the carbon-based graphene material that will revolutionize our financial and industrial future. Biofuels. https://bioresources.cnr.ncsu.edu/resources/a-review-on-bio-based-graphene-derived-from-biomass-wastes/
Put a bow on it, breathe deep, and get ready for the unintended consequences, which will be afterthought, is ever thought.
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I suspect D.E.W.’s played a role in this. Drone footages will be telling.
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The Things-are-really-OK deniers… ha. I’m not sure that’s quite pithy enough, but I love the idea of springing the “denier” label on them for a change. Turnabout is fair play and all that.
Resource deniers… Engineer deniers… Industrialism deniers… Climate Variability deniers… Mankind’s Tiny Footprint deniers…
Okay those probably have their own problems, just spitballing here. Carry on..
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That is quite a leap in logic. I’v lived at the base of mountain ranges most of my life. There is a phenomenon we call a “chinook”, a warm dry wind that descends from the eastern slopes of the Rockies, in my case. I never thought them dangerous, and in my years in Montana they were welcome in getting us out of a deep freeze. Now we have thousands of people living on the lower grasslands, so when a chinook arises, we can have danger as a spark will set off a fire.
The solution is to create fire breaks. Last March, where we live, we had 84 inches of snow, and then another 26 in April. This moisture creates lush meadows, beautiful to view, but when they dry in the fall, a fire hazard. That’s all this was, a chinook+abundant fuel. In the forest interface pthey do controlled burns, but in this interface, they need to mow. That was not done, but I am betting it will come up at future meetings everywhere in the state.
I am not about to think DEW or arson until we investigate. This is not the first chinook and wont be the last. One delightful side effect of chinooks is lenticular clouds. Just Duck Duck images of that phenomenon and take a gander.
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I used to live in Boulder and bicycle ride to work every day in Louisville, right through where the fires started and through now destroyed parts of Superior and Louisville. Boulder purchased the land between these towns as “open space”, not to be developed, driving up land and housing prices in the area. The fire swept uphill, through open space land, from 93 where the winds are the strongest through long, winter dead grasses and scrub oak in some places. At the top of the ridge it swept into Superior south of the Costco and along 36 into Louisville. Snow has been falling in the mountains this year, but the lower elevations got some of the first snow new years eve and yesterday. The normal weather here is very variable, and every single bit of this is normal. The shape of the front range in Boulder causes that county to often have the highest winds in the state.
And Mark, of course you are right, fall and early winter is the chinook wind season. They mow along the highways and the bike paths. Many areas there are now protected ecological zones, like along South Boulder creek. Students will be out there writing papers on the recovery following the fire.
I had heard some local Native American remarked that all the front range towns would eventually be burnt out.
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Homes and other man-made structures are the fuel that makes this urban landscape such a high-risk location for local residents. Metal roofs are uncommon and most framing is wood. I remember the Oakland Hills fire of 1991. That was the first similar fire I recall, burning over 1,500 acres and almost 3,000 single-family dwellings and over 4oo apartment and condominium complexes. Grasses and other “fine fuels” may get the show on the road, but the structures and wind cause the explosiveness once it gets rolling.
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The area that got burned between Marshall and Superior is just north of the Rocky Flats superfund cleanup site. This is known to be land that was polluted by radioactive particles from accidents at the Rocky Flats plant where nuclear bomb triggers were, in the past, assembled. Studies have been done showing increased cancer incidence between the Rocky Flats site and into south Boulder, and Marshall is right in the middle of that span.
I would be interested, if in the coming years studies show radioactive particulate pollution eastward from all that smoke. Some of the land that burned was a risky place to build and would have been logical to remain undeveloped.
Here’s a book on the easy to ignore radioactive pollution problems near that area, and the history of the accidents and cover-ups.
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Everything-is-OK deniers, hahaha, nice one
what I see are “Everything-is-” kneejerkers, but it flows to the same.
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RE: GAIA,
Oops, my bad. Did I miss an opportunity to say that weather warfare diverted our fall moisture to the California mountains? Perhaps the high winds were caused by the left coast blowing and the right coast sucking? Nothing is ever normal, ever. If I could have understood what you were saying, perhaps you were setting me straight. 😛
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if you can make a serious case for large scale weather modifications, in video, blog or book format, I am all ears.
Armwaiving not so much. Allegedly a little east of you dozens of “nukes” were detonated not too long ago…
the thing is, the WordPress engine turned my hooked parentheses invisible. I said “Everything-is-[Agenda]” kneejerkers.
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RE:GAIA
Actually the rumored nuke detonations were several hundred miles to the west of “here”, not east.
As for weather modification, nothing much was needed, in this case, since habits and building codes call for tar roofing and lotsa wood being used. The winds happen on a regular basis. Boulder’s anti-development open space policies hold acres in a fallow state where even the available hay is not harvested. Also, as I mentioned above, the southern most parts of the initial burn areas are known to be polluted with some radiological hazard dust so no sensible rancher would want that hay anyway.
Meanwhile, proving any weather mod might best be an exercise in science fiction, since any widespread use of electromagnetic weaponry would tend to be invisible. However plausibly I might describe it, it would remain plausibly deniable. Still just for the sake of future movie plot lines I might mention that thousands of cell phone towers used in unison might constitute a phased array system and damned if I know how any skeptic might be convinced if this were already happening.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KocNfO1PB-Q&t=18s Birds eye view of ‘fire’.
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Thanks, Motorhead. Without this video, the “downed power line” meme would have carried the day, week, year, ad infinitum. https://kdvr.com/news/local/could-this-burning-shed-be-the-source-of-the-marshall-fire/
How long will it take “investigators” to figure this one out, and who belongs to those white, unmarked SUVs parked behind the “crime scene” police tape? Don’t you just love a good mystery?
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I think that your site needs a theme song.
I nominate this one.
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