For the last week, the whole state of Texas has been battling enormous wildfires which have scorched a million acres of earth. The Texas Fire Service has had to rope in firefighters from 34 states to assist with managing the fires. All they can do is concentrate on putting out the big ones first.

Texas is currently burning from border to border. Dry weather and strong winds have fanned the blaze continually for days.

“Even if we get two inches of rain the ground’s going to eat it up,” said David Hennig, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Midland, Texas. “We need a pattern shift.”

Closer to home we’ve seen the devastation caused by a Somerset West veld fire over the weekend, which saw a reported 15 houses and the Straightway Head Hotel burned to the ground. Relatively speaking, the damage caused in the small Somerset West region in one day was far greater than the massive Texas fires, which have burned down 170 homes to date. Which puts this past weekend’s Western Cape fire tragedy into frightening perspective.

Fires are not funny, kids, and they can be an unstoppable force. It all makes you feel rather small and vulnerable, really. Methinks Mother Nature scoffs at the idea of humans “destroying the earth”. She’s got enough natural disasters up her sleeve to destroy us first if she so chooses. So play nice with her, mmmkay?

[Source: CNN]