Agree that none of this negates the risks of drought or global warming. Because I'm a journalist, I tend to focus on issues within my bailiwick rather than the hard science behind climate change, which I don't know as well as, say, geophysicists.

In this case, it was driving me a bit nuts that media kept ignoring wind as a factor in the fires--when this has been a windy year--and focusing just in the heat or sparse rainfall. I sympathize with my overstretched fellow journalists, but you're right: Some really should strive to learn more.