About time!

In case you missed the news this winter, we had a lot of rain in Arizona the early part of the year. Which we desperately needed - but not in the sudden quantities we did get. The extra rain caused a proliferation of brittlebush, California (or Mexican) poppies, lupines, and other wildflowers and bushes.

There's only two problems with this scenario: one, allergy season was terrible and two, after the winter rains, it doesn't rain again until July. A lack of a sustaining source of water, and intense heat cause all those bushes and plants shrivel up and become the fuel for a terrible wildfire. As of today, it's is illegal in most of Arizona to smoke in a state park unless you're in your car or have cleared a three foot radius around you (I don't know about the north rim part of the state).

But that's not enough to stop wildfires. When I'm on the road, I see people all the time toss out a cigarette butt out the window when they're done smoking. While I realize that people have the right to smoke, that does NOT give them the right to start a wildfire. The sad thing is that tossing a butt out the window does not immediately spark a fire, so by the time the fire is visible, they're long gone and didn't give it a second thought. I bet they would if they did that a mile from home, only to have the fire spread and burn their house down.

This Memorial weekend, officers will be on the lookout for speeders, drunk drivers, and people tossing butts out the window. The article brings up a couple of good points including that fact that even if the cigarette butt doesn't start a fire, it takes forever to decompose, causing potential illness to any poor animal that picks it up.