Whoever scheduled the solar eclipse for Aug. 21 should be fired.
That’s the joke, at least, among land managers bracing for the tidal wave of humanity expected to descend on the nation’s public lands for the once-in-a-lifetime event.
Millions of visitors are projected to swarm the forests and mountains in states within the eclipse path of totality, at the same time wildfire danger and summer tourism is reaching its apex.
“It literally could not be happening at a worse time,” said Jean Nelson-Dean, public information officer for Deschutes National Forest in Oregon, the first state that will get eclipse views.
Read more at the Statesman Journal.