• Rapid City Journal. Nov. 8, 2012
• fire season expensive
• Drought and one of the hottest summers on record combined to make 2012 one of South Dakota's most expensive fire seasons.
• The state has spent about $4.5 million fighting wildfires so far this year, a 364 percent increase over the $970,000 it spent in 2011.
• State fire officials began issuing fire danger warnings in mid-March following a drier than normal winter. On March 19, the National Interagency Fire Center listed the fire danger at Extreme, the highest level of alert, in every county of the Black Hills Are Fire Protection District.
• Despite warnings to be more careful with fire this year, and a ban on open fires in most of western South Dakota, firefighters fought 1,113 fires that burned more than 103,000 acres in the state. That is nearly twice the 631 wildfires that were extinguished in 2011.
• This year also could be called the year without fireworks as West River counties banned campfires and fireworks, and most Fourth of July fireworks celebrations were canceled. It made for a subdued and quiet July 4 holiday.
• The fire season turned deadly when four North Carolina Air National Guardsmen were killed in July when their C-130 crashed while fighting the 8,900-acre White Draw Fire near Edgemont.
• The two largest wildfires in the region were just outside the South Dakota border with the Oil Creek Fire near Newcastle, Wyo., that burned 62,318 acres and the Region 23 Complex near Chadron, Neb., that burned 86,201 acres.
• A big thank you goes out to area firefighters and volunteer fire departments for answering the call when a wildfire is spotted.
• Living in the Black Hills means that the threat of wildfire is always present. It doesn't help to have drought and record heat -- July was the hottest since 1936 with five days of 100-plus temperatures.
• Hopefully, this winter will see more normal precipitation or we'll be facing another difficult -- and expensive -- fire season in 2013.
• ___
• Aberdeen American New. Nov. 7, 2012
• With the contentious 2012 elections finished, now comes the really difficult part.

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