Whoa, so here’s the thing. Fires in forests, especially places like Yosemite, aren’t all about doom and gloom. Sure, we’ve all heard reporters like Corinne Purtill go on about how these mega blazes annihilate everything in their path, but hang on a second — that’s kinda missing the point. So, I read this piece she did about the 2013 Rim fire, and man, it just felt off. Like it totally romanticizes this idea that fires are all bad news. But dude, nature’s got this.
I’ve actually checked out the scene myself a few times since that fire that was supposed to “destroy” everything. And guess what? It’s NOT the wasteland you’d expect if you only listened to the drama queens calling the shots from their newsrooms. In places left alone, not messed with by people’s crazy logging and chemical sprays, it’s like a Disney movie out there! Green everywhere, plants doing a victory dance. Yup, perfect, untamed chaos.
Woodpeckers? They’re vibing there. Rare flowers? They’re living their best lives. Ecosystems know what they’re doing, folks. The real bad guys are the loggers with their shiny “restoration” badges — studies show they throw out 10 times more carbon into the air than what gets puffed out by fires or those little bark beetle dudes. Trees aren’t the problem, y’all, it’s the dudes with chainsaws.
So, the Rim fire wasn’t the apocalypse, or whatever. It was more of a wake-up call, like nature’s way of saying “Hey, chill out, I’ve got this.” We should probably listen.
