Saturday, July 22, 2006

Name That Fire!

Posted By on Sat, Jul 22, 2006 at 12:17 PM

Currently most of the wildfires burning in our state are contained or close to being contained—at least according to the Star—and of course, that'll probably all change once we get another lightning storm—but I've been wondering about how wildfires get their names.

According to a 2004 AP story, wildfires get their names from a landmark the first firefighter on the scene sees. But this year, we've had the Thumb Fire, and the Warm Fire—who saw a warm? And "Warm Fire" just doesn't sound very ominous. I'm definitely in favor of leaving the naming up to the firefighters, but there should perhaps be some sort of system, like with porn star names or pirate names.

For example, combine the significant geographic feature with a favorite food, or something, which would give us fire names like the "Big Rock Spaghetti" Fire, the "Chocolate Pine" Fire, or the "Sashimi Plateau" Fire. Aren't these much more interesting and provocative fire names?