A Record Fire Season for California
In a year that has already brought apocalyptic skies and a charred landscape to the West Coast, California set a grim new record last week when officials announced that the wildfires of 2020 have now scorched a record 4 million acres.
The unprecedented figure — an area larger than the state of Connecticut — is more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in California. We still have two more months before snowfall will likely bring the fire season to a close.
“The 4 million mark is unfathomable. It boggles the mind, and it takes your breath away,” said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. It is an area that is larger than the state of Connecticut. “And that number will grow.”
Cal Fire said in a recent statement that there have been more than 8,200 wildfires since the start of the year that have burned “well over 4 million acres in California” or 6,250 square miles. The previous record was set two years ago when wildfires destroyed 1.67 million acres (2,609 square miles).
It may not be possible to set a new record in the future. So much of California has burned in the past five years, there is little room for fires to sweep over old-growth forests. North of San Francisco, a dozen fire zones have burned one third of the land. Very few of these fire events overlap each other.
When you take into consideration lakes, fields, and urban areas, there is not much left to feed future wildfires. The fires have consumed almost everything that could fuel a conflagration. Grass fires can burn the same area each year, but these types of fires are generally easy to manage.
The endless fire events have taken a heavy toll on people who live in the danger zone. “I’m sort of numb at the moment,” said Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin as she drove away at about 1 a.m. from her evacuated home in the Oakmont community on Santa Rosa’s eastern edge. All of Oakmont’s 4,500 residents were ordered to leave.
Gorin has lived this nightmare before. Three years ago, the Nuns Fire consumed her Oakmont home, which is still being rebuilt while she lives in another home in the same neighborhood. While fleeing to a hotel in Novato, Gorin contemplated the horrendous prospect that the same fate could befall her once more.
“It seems surreal to me that we would be facing this again in some of the same areas that lost so many homes so traumatically just three short years ago,” Gorin said. “It’s like God has no sympathy, no empathy for Sonoma County.”
It is amazing that this record has not caused people to truthfully wonder if the Good Lord is trying to get their attention. The state has just voted to relax pedophile laws, and few people dare to wonder if there is a divine connection to their sudden misfortune.
Gorin actually points the finger of blame at climate change. She cited rising temperatures as causing California’s vegetation to be drier than normal, leading to ruinous infernos like the ones unfolding now. But temperature is not the only factor. There have not been as many wind events as in previous years. Most fires burn themselves out by randomly hitting obstructions (water, mountains, deserts) that will not burn. The fires of this season seem to have a guiding force that allowed them to seek out a continuous path of combustible material.
I think liberal policies have been a major factor in why the fires are so bad in California. Many of the most destructive fires sparked in the northern part of the state, where hills and mountains dotted with many dead trees have provided plenty of fuel for fires.
These wildfires are so far off the scale, they have to be a warning from God. Many people had thought that 2018 would be a record that would stand for many generations. Here we are, two years later, and the old record now looks like a small brush fire. Since we are rapidly running out of woodland for the Lord to burn in order to send a message of warning to the nation, an opportunity for repentance may be coming to an end.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
—Todd
COVID, Conspiracy, Crises, and Election
Time of crisis invariably produces conspiracy theory and controversy. The nation has been in constant crisis since the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump. From the election results’ beginning, there was the claim of its illegitimacy. The claim grew into accusations of collusion with the Russians to defeat Clinton and the Democrat Party. That burgeoned into the ongoing attempts to get rid of what the political left considers the illegal occupier of the White House.
Crisis has now reached the level of near-civil war to some extent. The party that claims to have been cheated either supports or remains silent about anarchists and rioters who are burning down cities whose mayors are Democrats, and who blame this president for their problems, even though they refuse to let him intervene with federal help.
Add to the election-produced crisis the COVID-19 “pandemic,” which comes on the heels of feverish efforts to create a controversy of major proportions each and every week.
The intrigues of the cabal that worked within the intelligence agencies of the Obama administration to forge false accusations against this president; the totally proven false Mueller investigation for months on end; the failed, disgraceful, impeachment attempt—all were part of the ginned-up crisis.
The assault has not lessened. Each week another Molotov cocktail is thrown into the incendiary effort of attempted coup d’état. And now an even stranger twist comes into what has, in my view, become an almost certain prophetic insinuation into this crisis of unprecedented virulence and intrigue.
The president, the most protected person in America—and arguably in the world—has come under attack from the microbic enemy called coronavirus. No one can seem to figure out how it got to him, even with the most intensive contact-tracing capability available on the planet. This, of course, has produced as many conspiracy theories as any found throughout the history of such crises.
One writer has the whole matter as concerning continuance of government.
A week or two ago, when the president first announced that he and the first lady had tested positive for COVID-19, the earliest conspiracy theories burst onto the World Wide Web. Some of the things one blog suggested might be involved were wrapped in the following.
Is the POTUS COVID-Based Quarantine a Cover Story for the Enacting of Continuity of Government Protocols?…
The implied message being given to the public suggests that the President is working, as normal, at the White House. However, people who are familiar with the protocols for such matters states that it is more likely that the President has retreated to The Presidential Emergency Operations Center which is a bunker structure underneath the East Wing of the White House. It serves as a secure shelter and communications center for the President of the United States and others in case of an emergency…
[The blogger went on to give possible reasons for the made-up announcement that the president and his wife had coronavirus.]
- Impending war with China is a distinct possibility. There are many ancillary factors that could serve to support this notion.
- The unleashing of what I have previously called the TET Offensive of terrorism.
- Impending war with both Russia and China.
- Incoming asteroid(s).
- A Deep-State initiated coup against the President.
- A defined series, not just one, assassination attempts being launched against the president. (Common Sense Show, Dave Hodges, Friday October 3, 2020)
Of course, we subsequently learned that the president and wife were whisked off to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. (Unless this is just a cover-up, as some conspiracy theorists would have it.)
The many intrigues rocking our world as of late makes almost any possibility seem feasible, I suppose. All the intrigue is driving us toward election, and it’s the supremely important things wrapped up within this matter with which I would like to conclude.
I refer not to the 2020 presidential election on November 3, but to the election of individual human beings to become heavenly citizens.
In this regard, election is all-important. What the great Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, said about the subject of winning, I can say about the subject of election: “Election isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
That is, God has elected you to become His child—to be saved from the wrath and judgment to come. And as we look around us, that wrath and judgment must be very near indeed (placing the Rapture even closer in the immediate future).
He has chosen to extend His grace to you through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, so you can avoid that coming judgment.
But you must accept the result of that election. You must say “yes” to that grace offer to be forgiven of all sin past, present, and future. And, after you have accepted that election, you should serve God, pray, and study His Word.
We, as His elect, are to carry out the Great Commission—to tell those we come in contact with about the saving power and love of the God who created all that exists.
“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall” (2 Peter 1:10).
–Terry