Some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
                                 Robert Frost

Drought conditions, high temperatures and low humidity contribute to apocalyptic sunset conditions in Utah County. On July 21, it felt like the end-times had arrived. While Robert Frost went on to suggest that ice would also suffice, the state with the Greatest Snow on Earth was  and is far removed from ice-like conditions.

In 1989, Billy Joel intoned, We didn’t start the fire.

In this case he may be wrong. It is entirely possible, excepting Mother Nature’s lightning strikes, that we did start the fire. According to Kate Galbraith of the New York Times on September 4, 2013,

Increasing incursions by humans into forests, coupled with altered forest ecology and climate change, will make fires bigger and more destructive, with implications for air quality as well as homes and infrastructure.

I can’t speak for the globe, although, in the last three years I have visited every continent. What I can say, is, IT IS HOT. And, I can say, along with Robert Frost, that I favor fire. I don’t mind the heat: although, when I see the sky, the sun, the clouds, changing to apocalyptic red, with smoke tendrils ominously reaching out, I’m chilled, the hair rises on the back of my neck, and I think, along with Frost, that ice…would suffice.

We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on
And on and on and on and on…
                                           Billy Joel