I hate to be an ecologist over this, but you are paying the price for many years of fire suppression and fighting fires, not to mention people moving in to wild territory in huge numbers expecting to be protected. The only way to make this work (if at all) is with huge increases in manageable fires, forestry staff, wildlife biologists, etc. which means big government and big spending, and I am told that your part of the world is agin big government. This will all disappear come the wintertime. But then, with global warming, wintertime may not exactly show up on cue in years to come. At some point, Americans (and the rest of us) have to start paying attention to nature's ways: maybe, ironically, it will be the West.

yours, Peter T.