Wildfires and other fire incidents

Post Reply
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Pay raises for many federal firefighters to begin next week
Source: LA Times

After years of demanding better pay, many federal firefighters will receive modest raises next week as the Biden administration makes good on a pledge to ensure that no firefighter earns less than $15 an hour.

Administration officials on Tuesday said the initiative will boost pay for more than 14,800 firefighters employed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department. Larger paychecks will likely begin appearing around Aug. 24 and will include retroactive raises dating back to June 30, when President Biden first promised to increase firefighters’ pay.

-snip-

Under the changes announced Tuesday, year-round and seasonal firefighters are eligible for the pay raises, as are retired employees who volunteer to come back to fight fires. In addition, all seasonal firefighters on the front lines will receive a $1,300 bonus and most permanent frontline firefighters will get a bonus of 10% of six months of their base pay.

The changes are temporary and are being distributed as bonuses in order to get money into firefighters’ bank accounts as quickly as possible.
-snip-

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/ ... -next-week
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Terrifying images show fiery column looming over Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe
Source: sfgate



Katie Dowd Updated: Aug. 17, 2021 6:08 p.m.


Wildfire cameras captured terrifying images Monday afternoon of the massive column of smoke and flames rising up from the Caldor Fire burning near Lake Tahoe.

The wildfire camera positioned on Leek Spring Hill, about 40 miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, showed the blaze looking more like an erupting volcano than the type of wildfires that Californians are sadly accustomed to.

"Radar shows the smoke plume at about 20,000 feet," said Cory Mueller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Sacramento office. "For a fire, that’s pretty good."

"It's very scary," said Neil Lareau, a professor of atmospheric sciences in the department of physics at the University of Nevada at Reno who studies wildfire-generated weather. "We have the worst mix of things you could put together for fires, which is a combination of dry vegetation, strong, shifting winds and an atmosphere conducive to these deep smoke plumes."......................
Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/california-wildf ... m=referral
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

California wildfires destroy homes; winds hamper containment
Source: AP

By ETHAN SWOPE and JOHN ANTCZAK

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Dry and windy weather dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California on Thursday.

An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke.

The U.S. Forest Service announced that it will close nine national forests in the region beginning on Aug. 22 and running through Sept. 6 because of extreme fire conditions and because firefighting resources have been stretched thin by the sheer number of blazes burning around the country.

The monstrous Dixie Fire, burning since July 13 in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, ballooned further to about 1,060 square miles (2,745 square kilometers) and was only 35% contained, authorities said.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... abc1858dc3
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Boundary Waters wilderness in Minnesota closed due to fire
Source: Associated Press

4 minutes ago
FINLAND, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service on Saturday closed the popular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota as the largest active wildfire in the state threatens the 1-million-acre property.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness stopped issuing entry permits Saturday, closing all land, water, trails, portages, campsites, canoe routes and wilderness entry points until Aug. 27.

The Boundary Waters in the Superior National Forest is one of the most visited federally designated wilderness areas.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-fires ... 9238b8a802
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Fight continues as Caldor Fire jumps Highway 50, threatening more homes
Source: KCRA3

By Stephanie Lin
New winds from the southwest pushed the massive Caldor Fire as it jumped Highway 50, threatening more homes and people in El Dorado County.

Officials shut down a forty-mile stretch of Highway 50 between Sly Park and Myers, and issued new evacuation orders on Friday.

While the 20-30 mph winds could blow away the heavy smoke and aid in firefighting efforts from the air, crews remained concerned about the fire jumping Highway 50, which happened Saturday afternoon.

"It's in such remote rugged terrain," said Engine Captain Will Burks with the Boise Bureau of Land Management. "It's hard to access. Our best strategy at this point is try to stay ahead of it and try to protect human infrastructure in its way."

Read more: https://www.kcra.com/article/fight-cont ... s/37364944#
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

No containment, new threats from Northern California fire
Source: AP

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire burning for a week in Northern California continued to grow out of control, one of about a dozen big blazes in the drought-stricken state that have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

There was zero containment Sunday of the Caldor Fire, which had charred nearly 154 square miles (399 square kilometers) of trees and brush in the northern Sierra Nevada after breaking out Aug. 14. The cause was under investigation.

Firefighters hoped to take advantage of calmer weather and cooler temperatures a day after gusts pushed the fire across U.S. Route 50, threatening more remote communities in El Dorado County.

Erratic winds sent embers flying into tinder-dry fuel beds, starting new ignition points and challenging crews trying to chase down the flames in rugged terrain.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... d1e7ad02ea
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Caldor Fire, 'knocking on the door' of Lake Tahoe area, becomes nation's 'No. 1 priority for firefig
Source: USA Today

Christal Hayes
STOCKTON, Calif. — A rapidly expanding wildfire is approaching the outskirts of the Lake Tahoe basin and has become the nation's No. 1 priority for firefighting resources, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

The Caldor Fire, which is only 10 days old, has exploded to nearly 123,000 acres and taken out 632 structures including more than 450 homes. It helped spur evacuations and, along with several blazes across the state, led to the closure of nine national forests. Nearly 18,000 properties were still in danger from the blaze, which was 11% contained as of Tuesday evening.

"It is knocking on the door to the Lake Tahoe basin," said Chief Thom Porter, director of CAL FIRE. "We have all efforts in place to keep it out of the basin but we do need to also be aware that is a possibility based on the way the fires have been burning."

Porter said the blaze was now the "No. 1 priority in the nation" for firefighting resources due to its proximity to so many residents, property and infrastructureas it inched toward the South Lake Tahoe area, a popular vacation spot straddling the California-Nevada border known for its massive emerald-blue waters. More than 2,100 personnel, 22 helicopters, 50 fire crews and 200 fire engines are working to douse the fire.
Climate change video with the story: https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/we ... 217810002/

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 579388001/
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by caltrek »

Welcome to the Pyrocene
by Stephen J. Pyne
August 18, 2021

https://grist.org/wildfires/welcome-to-the-pyrocene/

Introduction:
(Grist) This piece is adapted from the forthcoming book The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next, which will be published by University of California Press in September.

The fires of 2020 seemed to be everywhere, a pyric pandemic.

Places that commonly burn, such as Australia, California, and Siberia, burned with epic breadth and intensity. Australia had established a historic standard for a single outbreak with its 2009 Black Saturday fires; its 2019–20 Black Summer burns broke historic standards for a season. California endured its fourth year of serial conflagrations, each surpassing the record set the season before. Like a plague, the fires spread across Oregon and Washington, and then leaped over the continental divide to scour the Colorado Rockies. Siberian fires moved north of their home territory and flared beyond the Arctic Circle. Places that naturally wouldn’t burn, or that would burn only in patches, were burning widely. The Pantanal wetlands in central South America burned. Amazonia had its worst fire season in 20 years.

What the fires’ flames didn’t touch, their smoke plumes did. Australia’s smoke circled the globe. The palls from the West Coast fires spread haze through the country; they struck with the symbolic impact and visual intensity that dust storms evoked during the 1930s. The fires’ smoke obscured subcontinents by day; their lights dappled continents at night, like a Milky Way of flame-stars. Where fires were not visible, the lights of cities and of gas flares were: combustion via the transubstantiation of coal and gas into electricity. To many observers, they appeared as the pilot flames of an advancing apocalypse. Even Greenland burned.

The smoke and flames of last year’s fire season were a symptom, not a syndrome. Now they are back, like a revived wave of COVID. Greece and Turkey have replaced Australia as this year’s ground zero. Evacuations by sea beneath red skies on Evia and Mugla echo those from Mallacoota a year before. The West Coast fires have moved north into British Columbia. Siberia burned at an even larger scale. Algeria burned. Outbreaks follow migrating heat domes. What didn’t dry, drowned or flooded after burning.
Image
Forest Service firefighters set a controlled burn and remove dry vegetation in an attempt to prevent the spread of wildfires.
Photos courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service / USDA.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
weatheriscool
Posts: 12964
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by weatheriscool »

Dozens of homes, outbuildings burned in Minnesota wildfire
Source: AP
ISABELLA, Minn. (AP) — Dozens of homes, cabins and outbuildings have been destroyed or damaged in northeastern Minnesota as the state’s largest wildfire continues burning uncontained, according to Superior National Forest officials.

Authorities say 12 homes or cabins and 57 outbuildings have been lost in the Greenwood Lake fire that has consumed 34 square miles of forest land. An additional three homes or cabins were damaged in the fire, Minnesota Public Radio News reported Wednesday.

Thousands of the torched acres belong to a North Carolina family that is now questioning whether it did enough to mitigate fire risks, as the drought-stricken forest had been already weakened by an outbreak of spruce budworm, which decimated the area’s balsam fir trees and created a tinderbox.

Robert C. Hayes Jr., of Charlotte, North Carolina, whose extended family owns about 12,350 acres, or 20 square miles, at the Greenwood Lake fire site told the Star Tribune: “I’m afraid to go up there because the pictures I’ve seen. It’s just scorched.” A Star Tribune analysis of property records shows more than half of the Hayes’ forest land appears to be inside the fire perimeter.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-fir ... 97780388e1
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Wildfire news and discussion

Post by caltrek »

Fires in the Amazon are Out of Control. Again.
by Benji Jones
August 27, 2021

https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2021/ ... hange-2021

Introduction:
(Vox) In the summer of 2019, the Amazon captured the world’s attention when large chunks of the iconic rainforest went up in flames and smoke darkened the afternoon sky above São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. The following year proved to be even worse.

And this year?

It’s not looking good so far: More than 1,000 large fires have burned across the rainforest since January. Experts say this year is on track to be as bad as 2020, when fires razed more than 19 million acres of the world’s largest tropical forest.

Conservation advocates aren’t counting on help from the government of Brazil, which is home to some 60 percent of the Amazon. While President Jair Bolsonaro banned unauthorized outdoor fires and deployed troops to the Amazon earlier this year, experts say these efforts haven’t worked in the past — and question the president’s commitment to ending rampant forest loss. A populist and ally of former President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has dismantled a number of environmental protections since taking office in 2019.

The situation today is especially dire given that new research reveals that parts of the Amazon are already so damaged that they now emit more carbon than they absorb. Meanwhile, the landmark United Nations climate report published earlier this summer shows that the rainforest — which stores 123 billion tons of carbon and is a haven of biodiversity — is heating up and drying out at a much faster clip than other parts of the world. Drier forests, naturally, are more likely to burn.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Post Reply