Two weeks ago we had a fairly large fire in the area between Jim Thorpe and Packerton. It should be noted, however, that large fires in Eastern Pennsylvania, are generally modest affairs. The area burned was under a thousand acres, and, like most fires in this area, it burned the dry leaves along the ground, not jumping to the crowns of the trees. When you look at the burned areas, it is difficult to spot their location. Most of the trees are now leafing out.
In contrast the Los Angeles area fires this past January burned over 57,000 acres, according to the CA Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Palisades Fire lasted almost a month. In one day on January 7 the fire around the Pacific Palisades jumped from ten acres to more than 1,200 acres. And thousands of homes were burned to their foundations.
People often ask me if I miss California. Of course I do. What I don’t miss is worrying about a fire sweeping across our neighborhood in Fairfax, making sure there is always an exit road (we knew four), having a list on the refrigerator of items we should grab in the order of importance in case we only had a few minutes to get out.
I went hiking with friends one day a few years ago. There were no signs in the game lands parking lot, so we were surprised when the hill we climbing was on fire!
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