Wildfires in the western US

Has anyone else wondered if there is anything abnormal about the uncontrollable wildfires going on in the west?

Source: www.voanews.com...

2006 has been the worst year on record for wildfires in America. The problem has been especially severe in mountainous, heavily-forested Western states such as Montana, where an estimated 400,000 hectares have burned so far this fire season.

...lightning strikes, careless campers and, sometimes, arsonists routinely set America's wild lands ablaze.

If there are these huge underground facilities out there, could these fires be affecting them? Could they be set for a purpose?

Just something I've been thinking about.

The heat pulse from forest fires does not travel downward through the soil very far -- dry soil being an insulator (wet soil will transmit heat more than dry, but this time of year most western forest soils are dry). Burrowing animals easily survive most fires and emerge after the fire passes. An underground facility dozens of meters deep and walled with concrete would not be affected at all.

The overall burned acreage this year is somewhat misleading. Over the last several years firefighting strategies have changed. Portions of the fire perimeter threatening remote backcountry areas only are not aggressively fought anymore. Only the parts of the fire that are threatening high value areas are fought aggressively. The rest of the fire is allowed to burn to a strategic defensive location (main ridgetop, major road, etc) and then is stopped. So fires are allowed to get larger, sacrificing remote undeveloped areas for safety, cost, and convenience reasons, and freeing firefighters to focus on the threatened communities.