The impact of wildfires on our impulse to consume rurality in the West (and adjacent themes)

Capital Public Radio (Sacramento), my local NPR station, reported a few days ago on what the wildfires are doing to the state's (eco)tourist economy, especially piled on top of the economic damage inflicted by the pandemic.  Here's an excerpt from Julie Cart's story, based on a new report that concludes "California’s wildfires have deep and lasting effects on the health of the Sierra Nevada’s multi-billion-dollar tourism economy." 

The study, commissioned by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, an independent state agency, sought to understand who recreates at the region’s famous playgrounds, which draw nearly 23 million visitors a year: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, renowned ski resorts in Lake Tahoe and Mammoth and nine national forests.

While the economic effects of previous wildfires endured for one to three weeks after the fires were out, the report warns of longer-lasting concerns.

The report concludes:  

Nearly one in four of all the summer/fall leisure trips to the Sierra Nevada by nonresidents over the last 5 years were influenced by wildfire considerations, and this is expected to continue in the future without mitigation.

Don't miss the entire story, especially if you're a Westerner and/or if you love consuming rurality (sometimes aka wilderness).  

More coverage of the western wildfires includes this Capital Public Radio story about abandonment of Native American practices of forest/land/fire management, and this Los Angeles Times story about the rescue of farm animals in the Oregon wildfires.  Richard Read reports from Colton, Oregon, in exurban Clackamas County.   

And here's a great August ProPublica story about what firefighters know but too few policymakers are hearing and paying attention to.  

This New York Times story focuses on the fires' decimation of the timber economy in Oregon.    

Also, here's an excerpt from Nicholas Kristof's piece out of his hometown, Yamhill, Oregon, population 1,024, south west of Portland:  

In the end the local fire was extinguished because of the heroic work of a local fire department made up mostly of volunteers. They were bolstered with a deluge of food, drinks and gratitude from the community.

This was the best of rural America, and it was followed on Thursday night by what seemed the best sound in the world: rain pattering on the roof. Still, the fires fill me with disquiet for three closely related reasons.

First is the fear that these fires and their accompanying smoke represent the new normal. Researchers estimate that air pollution in China causes 1.6 million deaths a year, and smoke from fires in the West may eventually cause respiratory diseases that claim more lives than the fires themselves.

Second is frustration at the federal government’s paralysis. Just a couple of months ago, President Trump rushed to send in unwanted federal agents to deal with protests and trash fires in downtown Portland, but he seems indifferent when millions of acres and thousands of homes burn across the West.

“It’ll start getting cooler,” he advised, and that seems to be his strategy for fires, just as “it’ll go away” was his strategy for managing the coronavirus.

Third is the reaction of so many ordinary citizens here in Oregon and around the country: Instead of seeing these mammoth forest fires as a wake-up call to the perils of a warming planet, they believe and spread wild conspiracy theories suggesting that these fires were the work of shadowy leftist arsonists.