The famed Great Dismal Swamp of southern Virginia, dried to extremis by drought, was hit by lightning a few weeks ago and has been burning ever since, the smoke drifting as far north as Washington D.C.  While trees are burning with visible flame, the larger worry are the immense peat bogs stretching for miles beneath the once-mucky swamps; they are burning with no visible flame — and of course, as all vegetation will, releasing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

“Firefighters can see the smoke — indeed, people up to 420 miles away from the Great Dismal Swamp fire can see the smoke -– but they can’t see the fire.

Helicopters aren’t especially effective at dousing those underground flames, and lugging the pipes, pumps and hoses needed to drown the flames isn’t easy across often-roadless areas.

Then there are the trees. As the peat burns from underneath the roots of the trees, the trees often topple over, endangering firefighters, said Catherine Hibbard, a spokeswoman for the multi-agency effort fighting the so-called Lateral West fire.

The uprooted trees then bake from the heat emerging from the peat beneath them and eventually spark up into flames, spreading the fire into new areas, Hibbard said in an interview with the Times.

Smoke alerts throughout southern Virginia.

Has now crossed into North Carolina.

Oh, the Okefenokee in southern Georgia, is burning, too.

I certainly hope all the tax-deniers are not looking for any outside aid; they are all volunteering full time, I suppose.

And the climate deniers, who must think that unusual weather conditions are caused by God alone, must be praying for Him to change his mind and send the ill-winds to less God-fearing states…

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