The house had a designer look as well, with its railings and balconies and Italianate marbles under the tall dry trees.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gadomski said, thunderstorms boiled up in the mountains and the Western forests burst into flame when lightning struck the dry trees.
The first is the drought: dry trees are not just easier to burn, they are also weaker, because they are more vulnerable to disease and insects.
Rising around him was the sharp smell of dry trees, the dander of grubby monkey fur, boiled beans, burned meat, foul water, until the darkness itself seemed to stifle him.
Jane S. Hoffman, the city's consumer affairs commissioner, warned that fresh trees should be kept away from radiators or open flames and should be well-watered, because dry trees are more likely to catch on fire.
But in many places of the West -- either because the terrain is too rugged, or the trees too thin to make logging economically viable -- burning is the only way to reduce the density of small, dry trees and brush, foresters say.
Intuitively, it might seem that mountainsides pincushioned with dead, dry trees should burn more readily than those still awash in green.
He expects his costs to double by 2015 to upwards of $80 per ton for green trees or $120 a ton for dry trees.
