Fire season, already?

Yesterday, Governor Owens signed an Executive Order banning open fires and fireworks on state land. This is in response to the high fire danger this year, already there have been 576 wildfires, burning over 80,000 acres in Colorado already this year (see press release). Would you like to see some maps of the fires across the US? The National Interagency Fire Center has a collection of National Fire Maps from various agencies. If you are interested in reading more about the Mato Vega fire which has burnt 11,900 acres so far, check out the Denver Post article "Mato Vega firefighters make strides" (link good until 7/6, after that check out the ProQuest database).