- A number of wildfires burned in Eastern Florida on May 7, 2006, clouding the skies with smoke. At 6,000 acres, the largest of the fires was the Areca Fire burning in Palmetto, pines, and grasses along the Interstate-95 corridor. Smoke from the fires closed roads in the region, including the Interstate, and forced about 1,000 people from their homes, reported CNN. The MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the Areca Fire at 2:55 p.m., EDT. The fire itself is outlined in red, and a thick plume of smoke blows east over the Atlantic Ocean. The National Interagency Fire Center said that the Areca Fire was 80 percent contained as of May 8.
- Everson — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Everson is located in the Nooksack River valley of northern Whatcom County, some 15 miles northeast of Bellingham. The site of a long-established village of the Nooksack Indian Tribe, the area saw settlement by pioneer homesteaders as early as 1858, during the Fraser River Gold Rush, when a community called The Crossing was established less than a mile west of present-day Everson. This settlement relocated east with the coming of the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad in 1891, and Everson was platted not long after. The town was named for its first settler, who had homesteaded the site in 1871. In the early twentieth century, two industries were formed by local residents, both of which grew rapidly and provided employment for much of the population: a cannery and a condensery. They joined already burgeoning timber mills established in the late nineteenth century. The railroad made possible the widespread distribution of local fruit, vegetable, dairy, and wood products regionally, nationally, and internationally, and Everson industries thrived for generations. As of 2014, Everson retained its small-town features with a population of slightly more than 2,500, while still providing native as well as specialty produce to the wider region.
