Wildfires and other fire incidents

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Video description:

Greece is confronting an escalating wildfire crisis, with over 100 active blazes fueled by intense heat, scorching winds, and prolonged drought—forcing widespread evacuations across mainland areas and islands such as Chios and Zakynthos. Near Patras, flames have engulfed forests, homes, agricultural lands, and even a cement factory. Entire communities are under evacuation warnings while firefighters are understaffed and many are being employed seasonally, as if there is no need for them.

On the other hand, the Greek Prime Minister, just in July 2025, prioritized and offered 100 million euros to the monks of Agion Oros, the community of monasteries in Mount Athos, like prayers extinguish wildfires. As it is obvious, they don't!

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Wildfire Disasters Are Increasingly in the News, Yet Less Land Is Burning Globally – Here’s Why
By Mojtaba Sadegh, John Abatzoglou and Seyd Teymoor Seydi

August 21, 2025

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Worldwide, an estimated 440 million people were exposed to a wildfire encroaching on their home at some point between 2002 and 2021, new research shows. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire population of the European Union, and the number has been steadily rising – up 40% over those two decades.

With intense, destructive fires often in the news, it can seem like more land is burning. And in parts of the world, including western North America, it is.

Globally, however, our team of fire researchers also found that the total area burned actually declined by 26% over those two decades.

How is that possible?

We found the driving reasons for those changes in Africa, which has the vast majority of all land burned, but the total burned area there has been falling. Agricultural activities in Africa are increasingly fragmenting wildland areas that are prone to burning. A cultivated farm field and roads can help stop a fire’s spread. But more farms and development in wildland areas also means more people can be exposed to wildfires.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/wildfire-d ... y-261072

[caltrek]

Below is a somewhat different take on that same study (see above post), the difference being a matter of emphasis.

More People, Especially Those in Africa, are Being Exposed to Wildfires
Summary author: Becky Ham
August 21, 2025

Summary:

(Eurekalert) The population directly exposed to wildland fires increased by 40% globally from 2002 to 2021, according to a new study by Seyd Teymoor Seydi and colleagues. This increase occurred even as there was a 26% decrease in burned area during the same period. The increase was mainly driven by more people living in the wildland-urban interface – in other words, people moving into the areas where wildland fires occur. What’s more, 85% of global wildland fire exposures between 2002 and 2021 occurred in Africa, where fires do not usually reach catastrophic levels, although wildfire disasters in North America, Europe, and Oceania have garnered much more attention. Wildland fires from 1990 to 2021 are responsible for at least 2,500 deaths and 10,500 injuries, and 1.53 million deaths globally can be attributed to wildfire-induced air pollution. To quantify where direct exposure is happening, Seydi et al. looked at 18.6 million fire records from the Global Fire Atlas, along with population data and land cover and use data. In regions where fires spread rapidly, such as western North America and Australia, it is important to use “home hardening” structural and landscaping practices to enhance fire resistance, and “there is also a need for increased intentional fire use as a vegetation management tool to mitigate wildfire disasters,” the authors write.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094952

To read a presentation of study results as published in Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu6408

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Wildfires Can Raise Local Death Rate by 67%, Shows Study on 2023 Hawaiʻi fires
August 22, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) New research unveils the true death toll of the deadly August 2023 wildfires which took place in Lāhainā, Maui, Hawaiʻi — and which temporarily made wildfire a leading cause of death in Maui. By comparing death rates over time, the scientists found that two-thirds more people died that August than would have been expected. To stop this happening again, the authors say, major policy changes are needed, ranging from removing flammable invasive vegetation to improving disaster preparedness.

Additional extract:

“Wildfires can cause death in a variety of ways,” said Dr Kekoa Taparra of UCLA, co-first author. “In this case, recent reports suggest many deaths were due to direct exposure, smoke inhalation and burns. Others likely stemmed from disruptions in healthcare, like not being able to access critical medications or emergency treatment. Wildfires can also exacerbate pre-existing conditions.”

The researchers found that in August 2023, 82 more deaths were reported than expected: an excess death rate of 67%. In the week of 19 August, the rate was 367% higher than expected compared to previous years. 80% of these deaths didn’t take place in a medical context, 12% higher than in other months, suggesting some people never reached medical care because of the fires. At the same time, the proportion of deaths with a non-medical cause rose from 68% to 80%.
…
To protect Hawaiʻi from similar tragedies in the future, the researchers call for improved disaster preparedness and investment in the restoration of Native Hawaiian plants and agroecological systems, which reduce the likelihood of destructive wildfires compared to modern monocultures and invasive plant species.
…
“In the long term, we’d like to see more policy investment in wildfire prevention rooted in Native Hawaiian ecological knowledge,” said Taparra. “This includes restoring traditional agroecological systems, removing dry, non-native grasses, restoring traditional pre-colonial water systems, and improving fire risk modeling to better guide preparedness efforts.”

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094101


For a presentation of study results as published in Frontiers: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cl ... 1198/full

[wjfox]

Spain and Portugal wildfires drive worst EU season on record

6 hours ago

A record one million hectares - equivalent to about half the land area of Wales - have burned across the European Union so far this year, making it the worst wildfire season since records began in 2006.

Spain and Portugal have been hit especially hard, with roughly 1% of the entire Iberian Peninsula scorched, according to EU scientists.

The worsening fire season in the Mediterranean has been linked directly to climate change in a separate study by the World Weather Attribution group at Imperial College London.

Experts warn that more frequent and severe fires across Europe are likely to continue in the future.

More than two thirds of the area burned in the EU is in Spain and Portugal alone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6n8qqlj8go

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Study Finds Wildfire Mitigation Strategies Can Avoid Destruction by Half
August 28, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Since January’s wildfires flattened entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, displacing 12,900 households and causing an estimated $30 billion in losses, California’s many other fire-prone communities have been eager for solutions to better protect themselves.

A new UC Berkeley-led study provides these communities and their lawmakers with actionable data on how wildfire mitigation strategies can reduce the destructiveness of wildfires by as much as 50%.

One option to reduce wildfire damage is home hardening, which describes a variety of structural modifications that homeowners can use to make their houses less susceptible to fire. These include using fire-resistant siding and roofing materials, covering vents to prevent embers from entering the home, and upgrading to double-paned tempered glass windows that are less likely to break in a fire. Another strategy, defensible space, refers to a vegetation-free “buffer zone” around a home or structure. Because renovating existing homes is not always easy or cheap, data on the effectiveness of these measures is key to justifying future investment.

In the study, the researchers used state-of-the-art wildfire simulation tools, combined with real-world data from five of the most destructive fires that occurred in California before 2022, to quantify the impact of these strategies.

It found that home hardening and defensible space together can double the number of homes and other structures that survive a blaze. Notably, they also demonstrated that just removing the vegetation within a 5-foot perimeter of homes — the subject of California’s proposed Zone Zero regulations — could reduce structure losses by 17%

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1096350

For a presentation of study results as published in Nature : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63386-2

[caltrek]

Federal Agents Arrest Firefighters Working on Washington Wildfire
By Isabella Breda and Conrad Swanson
August 27, 2025

Introduction:

(The Seattle Times) Two people fighting the Bear Gulch fire on the Olympic Peninsula were arrested by federal law enforcement Wednesday, in a confrontation described by firefighters and depicted in photos and video.

Why the two firefighters were arrested is unclear. But a spokesperson for the Incident Management Team leading the firefighting response said the team was “aware of a Border Patrol operation on the fire,” that it was not interfering with the firefighting response and referred reporters to the Border Patrol station in Port Angeles.

Over three hours, federal agents demanded identification from the members of two private contractor crews. The crews were among the 400 people including firefighters deployed to fight the wildfire, the largest active blaze in Washington state.

Conclusion:

Federal policy under President Joe Biden’s administration stated that without “exigent circumstances” agents would not conduct their operations at natural disaster or emergency sites. Whether that policy remains in place, however, remains unclear.

Federal officials have pursued aggressive immigration enforcement actions under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Read more here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-n ... wildfire

[caltrek]

Who Pays for Wildfire Damage? In the West, Utilities are Shifting the Risk to Customers.
By Will Peischel
September 19, 2025

Introduction:

(Grist) Every spring, investors flock to Omaha, Nebraska, for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting, where Warren Buffett holds court. Insiders call it “Woodstock for Capitalists,” and CNBC covers it with the fervor of Fox Sports on Super Bowl Sunday.

Last year’s meeting held particular weight. Investors were watching closely to see if Buffett, the company’s 93-year-old CEO, would name Greg Abel, Berkshire’s vice chairman, as his successor, and how the company would weather the billions in wildfire lawsuits threatening its energy utilities.

Buffett dodged the succession question, but the meeting revealed something just as consequential: the company’s strategy to avoid wildfire liability.
Two months earlier, the Utah legislature had passed a law allowing utilities to charge their own customers to build a fund for future fire damages. The state also has a 2020 law on the books that capped the amount fire victims could sue utilities for in damages. Combined, the two laws mean that if homes in Utah burn down due to a power company’s faulty electrical line, the financial damages residents can seek are limited — and they may already have been paying into the fund that covers them. For utilities, the result is reduced costs.

At the shareholder meeting, Abel singled out Utah as “the gold standard” of utility protection — a model he urged other states to adopt. “As we go forward,” he told the crowd, “we need both legislative and regulatory reform.”

Berkshire Hathaway Energy, or BHE, Buffett’s $100 billion energy arm, operates a vast power grid that stretches across the West. BHE subsidiaries such as Rocky Mountain Power and PacifiCorp are responsible for maintaining more than 17,000 miles of transmission lines that serve roughly 10 million customers across 10 states. In recent years, BHE has been slapped with lawsuits in Oregon worth nearly $10 billion for fires caused by its faulty equipment. For BHE, the Utah laws were a significant win, shielding the company from that kind of liability in at least one state. Across the West, BHE-owned utilities and their lobbyists are now trying to replicate that success, securing laws that both cap wildfire damages and shift costs onto customers.

Read more here: https://grist.org/wildfires/who-pays-f ... stomers/

[firestar464]

Wildfire smoke could kill more Americans each year, study says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medica ... i-AA1MV1v5

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

LA Fires Showed How Much Neighborliness Matters for Wildfire Safety – Schools Can Do Much More to Teach It
By Elizabeth A. Logan and William Deverell
December 29, 2025

Introduction:

(The Conversation) On Jan. 7, 2025, people across the Los Angeles area watched in horror as powerful winds began spreading wildfires through neighborhood after neighborhood. Over three weeks, the fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes and businesses. At least 31 people died, and studies suggest the smoke and stress likely contributed to hundreds more deaths.

For many of us who lived through the fires, it was a traumatic experience that also brought neighborhoods closer together. Neighbors scrambled to help each other as burning embers started spot fires that threatened homes. They helped elderly and disabled residents evacuate.

As the LA region rebuilds a year later, many people are calling for improvements to zoning regulations, building codes, insurance and emergency communications systems. Conversations are underway about whether rebuilding in some locations makes sense at all.

But managing fire risk is about more than construction practices, regulations and rules. It is also about people and neighborliness – the ethos and practice of caring for those in your community, including making choices and taking steps on your own property to help keep the people around you safe.

As LA-area residents and historians who witnessed the fires’ destruction and have been following the recovery closely, we believe building a safer future for fire-risk communities includes increasing neighborliness and building shared knowledge of the past. Much of that starts in the schools.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/la-fires-s ... t-272505