I remember some pretty bad dust storms, with fires, in the prairies when I was a teenager. Thankfully I'm not asthmatic so it didn't affect me too badly, but my eyes stung a lot. It's disturbing to see that much soil in the air, though. Is there tilling and sowing going on at this time of year? Don't people plant windbreak hedges at the edge of their properties any more? Soil erosion is scary stuff.

Fire is just another part of the natural cycle of things, of course, and if nobody does controlled burns then eventually there will be a dry year and you'll get grass fires (or indeed forest fires). You can choose when you have fire, but only to a point - "never" is not on the list of options.