This was the best part of that article:

<i>Richard Minnich, a UC Riverside professor who has studied wildfires for decades, said the blame for the rapid spread of fire falls not on the drought or dry weather, but on excessive plant growth caused by 100 years of aggressive firefighting.

There's a cycle to natural wildfires, he said.

An area with heavy brush burns into an area that may have burned a few years before and stops, creating a patchwork of old and new growth that naturally prevents a fire from getting too big, he said.

``Don't blame the drought; blame the growth,'' he said.</i>

It's about time we changed our fire management policies here in the West. We've already created a million disasters waiting to happen by fighting all these fires.