Different forest types, too. Lots of lodgepole pine near Merritt. There is no such thing as a gentle, ground fire in a lodgepole pine forest. The trees grow close together, have thin bark that cannot survive fires, build up lots of leaf litter on the forest floor, and keep their lower branches. When a lodgepole pine forest catches fire, it is an all-consuming conflagration.
Most of their cones can’t even open absent fire. They only open after being toasted by one, scattering the seeds for the next generation of lodgepole pines (which need the bare mineral soil, rich in ash, left by a fire to germinate).
FWIW I think I will be wrong about late May troughing. The EPS has slowed the MJO transit across the pacific such that dateline forcing now establishes late month (as opposed to completing late-month).
So what looked like a troughy pattern after the 25th now gets pushed back a couple weeks into June. Though it’s possible the EPS is once again over-bullish on the WPAC/dateline MJO (which has been the case thus far) MJO and it’ll end up being a speedy CCKW type wave, which would render the ridging inconsequential.
It's how fascism works. Fascists live almost exclusively in the realm of feelings, not reason or logic.
The leader worship, the disdain for democratic norms (even long-held ones that, per the principles of conservatism, would be respected), the ambiguity between what is trolling and what is really being advocated, we all have seen it before in Italy and Germany.