The Sacred Path

Good news on the Bone Creek fire as of yesterday.

InciWeb is reporting:

The Bone Creek Fire was started by lightning on Monday, August 13, 2007. Active fire suppression began at once and crews continue to fight the fire. Firefighters have worked day shift only due to the safety concerns associated with the steep and rugged terrain found in Shell Canyon.

Firefighters engage the fire at points where it is safe to deploy crews. Their numbers fluctuate on the fire dependant upon the weather and burning conditions. In early September there were close to 250 firefighters engaged in the suppression effort. Due to recent moisture and cooler temperatures there are now only about 50 firefighters on the line.

The fire is presently 13,450 acres and is 95% contained. No structures or improvements are threatened by the fire. All designated forest roads are open to public access. You can expect to see smoke from the Bone Creek fire until there is sufficient snowfall to effectively put out the fire.

Current information on the Bone Creek Fire along with maps, photographs and press releases can be found at www.inciweb.org or the Bighorn National Forest web site, www.fs.fed.us/us/r2/bighorn.

The latest InciWeb news release reports:

Greybull, WY (Sunday, September 16, 2007) - The Bone Creek fire was turned back to the Bighorn National Forest this morning after firefighters gained 95% containment on Saturday, September 15, 2007.

The fire will continue to be suppressed until it is declared out. A Type III team will manage the suppression effort. The public can expect to see smoke, helicopter water bucket drops and firefighters on the line until a season ending weather event puts out the fire.

All designated forest roads in the area are open to the public use. Please follow the forests off road travel regulations.

The Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team would like to thank the communities of Bighorn County for helping to make our firefighting effort both productive and cost effective.

Big thanks to all those working – and who have worked – the fire.

My friend Frank DeMarco posted an interesting article on his blog titled, News item from This is London, about a young Czech motorcycle rider that was knocked unconscious during a race, and for a while after coming to, spoke perfect English without an accent.

I don’t really know what to make of it, but it is certainly an interesting read.

The other day the Schwartz Report had a link to a story in the Wall Street Journal written by Jennifer Corbett Dooren, titled Study Shows Steep Rise In Adverse Drug Reactions. In the eight year period from 1998 to 2005 the number of serious drug side effects reported to the FDA more than doubled.

According to the story:

A serious adverse drug event, defined by the FDA, means an event that resulted in death, a birth defect, disability, hospitalization, was life-threatening or required medical intervention to prevent harm.

From 1998 to 2005, there were 467,809 serious adverse events reported. The annual number of reports rose from 34,966 in 1998 to 89,842 in 2005 [250% increase] while the number of fatal adverse drug events increased from 5,519 to 15,107 [274% increase] in the same time frame.

The study noted that, overall, the relative increase in serious reports was four times faster [400% increase] than the growth in total U.S. outpatient prescriptions, which grew in the same period from 2.7 billion to 3.8 billion [140% increase].

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