Some of us live in areas where wildfires are a great annual threat, some years worse than others. I have some assorted links to sites of interest.
Some like this first one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vh4cQdH26g) illustrates just how wind driven embers from a wildfire initiate structure fires. In this video the embers are small to middling size. A raging wildfire can carry "embers" larger than your fist with ease. In the video we see a purpose built test building subjected to man made embers blown by a 10 - 20 mph breeze. A raging wildfire can readily generate winds in excess of that.
Another link, this time a Powerpoint presentation (http://chrome-extension://gbkeegbaiigmenfmjfclcdgdpimamgkj/views/app.html), named "Be Ember Aware".
For up to date information about wildfires anywhere in the USA here's a link to Inciweb (http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/). In the upper right corner you can select by incident name and/or state. There are Google Earth KML files available that will let you see fire perimeters at various points in time. Various maps and info about the progress of each fire.
This would be incomplete without info on how to be "firewise (http://www.firewise.org/)".
It's been such a wet summer, it has not been on my mind, though we did spend Memorial Day burning brush.
Now it is drying out again, and I see a haze that indicates a fire somewhere.
A nice short reprieve.
Always a relevant topic.