In the area that runs from Northern California through Central and Eastern Oregon on into Central Idaho, we are seeing energy release components that are setting records.

I'm always cautious to downplay range fires, because if it's your ranch building or grazing allotment that got burned up it's pretty important. But timber fires require a lot more people, equipment, time and money to put out, and so far even when we've had lightning ignition, we didn't get the large fire initiation.

To get a big fire, you need high temperatures, low relative humidity, dry fuels and winds all aligned on the same day. We haven't seen that much this year, yet our overall acreage burned is much higher than in the past.