What If The West All Goes Up At Once? The Orderly Progression Of A "Normal" Wildfire Season Is Being Tested.

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HappyAnimalCracker@reddit

The Line Fire at the New Mexico/Texas border was discovered at 6pm on Thursday May 14th. As of 11pm, it was 23,000 acres.

I recommend the Watch Duty app for everyone. It’s free but so valuable I’ve opted for the paid version, a rare act for me.

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aubreypizza@reddit

💯 great app. I will say it’s very stressful just watching a fire creep closer to people/places that you love and being able to do nothing about it. That was me in 2024 with the South Fork Fire.

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HateHumansLoveDogs@reddit

I think this may be appropriate considering https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-government-planning-dramatic-colorado-river-water-cuts-due-drought-overuse-2026-05-15/

The only saving grace is if El Nino produces and sends a lot of rain to the west

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vand3lay1ndustries@reddit

Virginia is in its worst drought ever, so we're due for a wild fire.

Seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains on fire would break my heart.

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TheUpbeatCrow@reddit

Yeah, I hope you don't have to. I'm desperately hoping that for you, stranger.

I'm very grateful not to have lost my home, but seeing places and trails I loved ablaze during the Marshall Fire here in Colorado is something I would never wish on anyone.

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I'm expecting a significant city to burn down this year as resources get used up and caught out of position, just bad luck on the timing. If the southwest gets a decent monsoon from this winter's El Nino they need to double the efforts to do controlled burns while they can still reliably stay controlled.

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nobadrabbits@reddit

Arizona hasn't had a decent monsoon in years.

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HotLiberty@reddit

Decent one is predicted this year

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disharmony-hellride@reddit

Good. I am so deflated seeing all the clouds build up and nothing comes.

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GurSmall4206@reddit

Going to be interesting if somehow the oil shortages are far worse than expected and they cant find fuel for firefighting helicopters

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deter@reddit

New fear unlocked.

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BusyBanana4205@reddit

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Kevin O’Leary out there somewhere with a blow torch.

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C-Redd-it@reddit

It'll happen when those giant data centers go up

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mooky1977@reddit

Maybe those ai datacenters can figure out how to stop wildfires from destroying datacenters in an act of self preservation. Consciousness.... So this is how Skynet is born!!!!! /s

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Interesting_Fly_1569@reddit

Do you know what’s crazy is there’s technology for cooling them that doesn’t involve water… It’s a type of gel… It’s just slightly more expensive and so they have decided to trash the environment instead. 💀

Wish I was kidding

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mooky1977@reddit

That really doesn't matter. That heat still ends up in the environment by passive radiation whether it cools from water or out of this gel material which you speak. Energy is not created or destroyed, only changed.

Climate change is about the total heat we have and continue to unlock from mainly fossil fuels and dumping in the environment. To fix climate change we need to spend energy equal to amount spent already in reverse. It's an exponential problem with an unfathomable calculation. Tldr; we're fucked.

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shwhjw@reddit

AI: stop burning fossil fuels

Humans: hmmm not smart enough

In reality, the AI in these datacentres is instead being used to track the movements and habits of every citizen, so this scenario would never happen.

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Vegetaman916@reddit

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Creepyfaction@reddit (OP)

We saw widespread wildfire starts yesterday. So what happens if, instead of the nice, neat progression of a western fire season, it turns into an all out, everyone for themselves, free for all? Usually, we see Florida get busy, then the East Coast pops, Texas, and the Plains go, the snow melts, and the Great Lakes States become active, then the Southwest pops.

But we are seeing larger fires across the West slowly start to show up. And with the updated snowpack map, maybe we don’t see the “normal” progression of the Southwest, then the Rockies and the Great Basin, a rotation to the Northern Rockies, and finish off with the PNW and California."

As noted before, with the Super El Nino, drought conditions, and cuts to wildfire services, the countdown to Summer is occurring as wildfires begin popping up throughout North America. One thing to consider is how the wildfire seasons will play out as the normal patterns no longer exist.

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adherentoftherepeted@reddit

AND . . . the f'ing regime has dismantled our federal wildland firefighting capacity (it's a complete shit show) AND fuel prices are sky high (modern wildland firefighting takes a crap ton of fuel) AND the Colorado River basin is dry, dry, dry AND the super El Nino will wreak complete havok on air temps and maybe give us lots of thunder storms. Good times are acomin'

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polchiki@reddit

Yea smokejumpers were given that federal employee offer to quit in 2025, then given that assignment from DOGE to write a task list each week to the feds, justifying their jobs. Insane to do that to emergency services.

There’s a smokejumper running for office in Montana (Sam Forstag) because he almost died in a fire in Alaska last year, and he can point a direct line to the cause being insufficient manning and inexperienced new folks because the OGs got fired or left.

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Jovan_Knight005@reddit

One thing to consider is how the wildfire seasons will play out as the normal patterns no longer exist.

Normal wildfire patterns won't exist and it would be replaced by chaotic wildfire patterns in the North American continent.

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PromotionStill45@reddit

Watching the fires around Canyon, Texas (just south of Amarillo in the Panhandle). Started by lightning and spreading thanks to wind. Took out a train trestle bridge, so that will put pressure on rail freight.

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36monsters@reddit

Well maybe if our wildland firefighters would just dedicate more time and effort into raking those forest floors dueing the off season this wouldn't be such a big problem.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/24/climate/trump-california-fires-raking-forests

And while it shouldn't have to be said...just in case anyone is confused... /s

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OffToTheLizard@reddit

No, they don't have to do that if we just glyphosate the forests! Agent orange all over again...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/roundup-glyphosate-spraying-forests-monsanto-science-retraction-cancer-health-concerns-maha-trump-executive-order-supreme-court-bayer-lawsuits/

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Ilikeyellowjackets@reddit

Cyberpunk 2077 ass headline

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JackBlackBowserSlaps@reddit

Given the state of drought in the US, it should be a smokey summer. Hope we don’t send too much from Canada.

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nothankeww@reddit

this is fine

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Konradleijon@reddit

Fudge

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ccnmncc@reddit

What’s it like in Russia?

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Creepyfaction:

We saw widespread wildfire starts yesterday. So what happens if, instead of the nice, neat progression of a western fire season, it turns into an all out, everyone for themselves, free for all? Usually, we see Florida get busy, then the East Coast pops, Texas, and the Plains go, the snow melts, and the Great Lakes States become active, then the Southwest pops.

But we are seeing larger fires across the West slowly start to show up. And with the updated snowpack map, maybe we don’t see the “normal” progression of the Southwest, then the Rockies and the Great Basin, a rotation to the Northern Rockies, and finish off with the PNW and California."

As noted before, with the Super El Nino, drought conditions, and cuts to wildfire services, the countdown to Summer is occurring as wildfires begin popping up throughout North America. One thing to consider is how the wildfire seasons will play out as the normal patterns no longer exist.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tdmjma/what_if_the_west_all_goes_up_at_once_the_orderly/olwagfa/