By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – August 27, 2021 California encompasses over one hundred million acres of land surface. It is one of the largest States in this Country. Currently just over one and a half million acres and growing have gone up in smoke and flame. While this has been typical for several years now, it is by no means any thing out of the ordinary from California's history of large scale burns. Prior to the westward expansion of Europeans in the United States in the 1800s, fires of far greater magnitude have been documented to have occurred in the State. Some estimates place the number of acres burned in the past as nearing or exceeding four million acres, without even a tip of the hat to "Climate Change". Prior to the 1970s when logging was in play fire acreage had diminished to a manageable level in the Western United State, including California. After the Federal Government saw fit to pass the Endangered Species Act and states like California improved upon it with legislation of their own, Forest Management became a lost art form. In the succeeding fifty years, fire damaged acreage began to inch towards its previous pre 1800s levels as the forests, federal and state, lacked a coherent planned forest management system. In the late 90s when forest fires in California once again became problematic, environmentalists, not wishing all their hard work to eliminate logging to go to waste, latched on to "Global Warming", and now "Climate Change" as the culprit. Recently our Hairness in Chief, Gavin Newsom, visited some of the recent devastation caused by wild fires in the State, and as in his empty suited nature proclaimed once again, "Climate Change" was the obvious cause of this now annual crisis. This year it was warmer spring weather that created more moisture less fuel loads that were easy targets for the summer month's typical thunder and lightening storms. Problem explained! But wait a minute, it is always hot and dry in California in the summer and smaller snow pack can't reasonably explain why there is so much dry fuel load on the ground in the first place. When the empty suit took office in 2019, he met with then President Trump, bemoaning the fact that the Feds weren't doing much Forest Management recently and intimated that he in the lofty position of Governor would like them to step up. After all he had promised the voters of California he was going to do his part on State lands in California. Seems the figure of 90,000 acres of state land was to be managed to prevent future wild fires. More money was to be allocated for the purpose and all would be headed at least in the right direction. It was until Newsom's administration had second thoughts, the money was diverted and the acreage reduced to a bit over 11,000 acres. Ooops! The lack of Forest Management in the State and on Federal lands came back to create a banner year in 2021 for wild fires, but "Climate Change" is really the problem. At least in Newsom's mind. Tell that to the people that have suffered the loss of over 1,000 structures in this fire season alone. Until Forest Management is recognized as an integral part of containing the random summer wild fires, growing in number as it has been neglected, the increase in CO2 created by the fires will only acerbate the environmental issues with the gas in California. Of course that would require a seismic shift in thinking by our Governor, clearly something he finds difficult.