Reuters is reporting today on the fate of the lost hiker in Arizona who started the Heber fire with a signal fire. Although she will not be charged with a crime there will definitely be a burden for her to bear as a result of her actions.<br><br>This should serve as another reminder to think before you act.<br><br>Here is a link to the article: http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1224304<br><br>Chris

Think how different her fate would have been if she used a good Signal Mirror instead of a fire.

She's alive.<br><br>It's hard to second guess soemone who's been in the desert for three days without food, water or shelter. Maybe a signal mirror would have worked, maybe not. Instead we might have been commenting on the reports of a dead woman's body found in Arizona.

"This is the real world muchachos, and we are in it"- B.Traven, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Nature isn't very foregiving, be it injured grizzly bears or bird watchers. Conversely, our species alone can modify entire ecosystems over generations or within days. Every fire locally is a boon to archaeologic surveys and the missing persons files. People continue to attempt desert crossings from Mexico into the Southwestern deserts. They've died of thirst, hypothermia and two by ingesting poisonous mushrooms. After a major disaster such as the Arizona fires come the agendas and finger pointing. Environmentalists point to the droughts caused by over timber harvesting, lumbermen to overgrown vegetation and burned out homeowners at the individuals who actually initiated the blaze. We can't second guess any of these views here. What we can do, and the site's purpose, is to educate. Bill's scout troop and the dope smoking mountain man I "lectured "on the fire hazard posted trail today are a start.