I am writing this diary from Pueblo, Colorado. I've been here for some time, and I can tell you that the average weather conditions have changed a great deal over the last few decades.
This year we have had a huge number of wildfires. It seems to be some sort of new yearly event, because we've had them for several years. This time a fire in the mountains was so bad it threated to burn the Royal Gorge Bridge which is something of an architectural marvel. More then 5000 people had to evacuate South Fork. Firefighters were optimistic they could save most of the town, but there still seems to be some doubt.
Firefighters who testified to seeing a one hundreed foot tall wall of flame called it unprecedented, the worst year for Colorado forest fires ever. You know when they said that last? Last year. They were probably right then too, but this year has been even worse.
Like much of the West, we've seen three substantial years of drought and the wildfires have found many dead spruce to burn. The interesting thing to me is so how different it all seems from when I came here more then ten years ago, or from how people remember when they were younger.
We never got a lot of rain, but I remember when there was period in spring when we got rain every day for almost two weeks. Strangely, it also came down at almost the same time every day. It's that predictability that I remember the most. I used to drive home on my motorcycle, and I had it timed so well that I would park under a bridge a minute or two before it began to rain, then watch as the rains cooled everything down. It was kind of a nice break in the day. I really miss it.
We haven't had that rainy period in many years. It's something a lot of people who grew up here remember, but it's no longer a part of our year.
The funny thing about this wildfires is that it would be difficult to find a group more negatively effected by them then Colorado ranchers. But as terrible as the effects are, you won't find a group more conservative or more convinced climate change doesn't exist then ranchers.
It always seems to be the people most in trouble, who are most incapable of admitting that something is going on.