Wildfires and other fire incidents

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Yuli Ban
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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'The animals are on fire,' say devastated farmers as wildfires sweep Turkey
In the small village of Kacarlar, on Turkey's southern coast, farmers are facing apocalyptic scenes as wildfires continue to sweep the country.

"The animals are on fire," 56-year-old resident, Muzeyyan Kacar, told CNN. "Everything is going to burn. Our land, our animals and our house. What else do we have anyway?"
Hundreds of miles west, in the tourist hotspot of Bodrum, more than 1,000 people were evacuated by boat on both Sunday and Saturday to escape the wildfires.
At least eight people have died in more than 100 blazes that broke out earlier this week, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. The flames have been fueled by scorching summer temperatures and conditions that experts say have been worsened by climate change.
Seven people were killed in the fires in Manavgat, Antalya Province, and the eighth victim died in Marmaris, Anadolu reported. The latest victims include a Turkish-German couple who were found in a house, it said.
Image
A vehicle burned in the fire that broke out in Mugla's Marmaris district in Turkey on July 30.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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caltrek
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Now There's an Outbreak of Wildfire Thunderclouds
by Matt Simon
July 27, 2021

https://www.wired.com/story/oh-good-now ... derclouds/

Introduction:
(Wired) LAST WEEK, THE US Naval Research Laboratory held a very 2021 press conference, in which scientists reported a very 2021 outbreak of “smoke thunderclouds.” Catastrophic wildfires, exacerbated by catastrophic climate change, had produced a rash of pyrocumulonimbus plumes over the western United States and Canada, known in the scientific vernacular as pyroCb.

“You can think of them as like giant chimneys, funneling smoke that's being released by the fire up into a thunderstorm,” said David Peterson, a meteorologist at the research laboratory, during the Zoom press conference. “You can imagine this extremely dirty thunderstorm, with all these smoke particles for water to condense on.”

Unlike a typical thunderstorm, though, the resulting water droplets don’t tend to get large enough to fall as rain. “But it is a cloud that can produce a lot of lightning,” Peterson added. These clouds can then advance across the landscape, sparking new wildfires as they go. So not only can the blaze propagate itself by flinging embers ahead of the main fire line (California’s wildfires are so deadly in part because of strong seasonal winds that push them at incredible speeds), it can also produce so much hot, rising smoke that it in essence recruits the atmosphere to light more fires for it. It’s a runaway self-proliferating machine.

The pyrocumulonimbus plumes will also energize the wildfire that spawned them. As the hot air rises away from the fire, air near the ground rushes in to fill the void, supercharging wind speeds at the surface. But because a pyroCb is a thundercloud, it also produces a downdraft along with that updraft, creating extremely irregular wind behavior near the surface. Basically, if you’re expecting a pyroCb-spawning wildfire to behave in rational ways, marching across the landscape with the prevailing winds, you’ve got another thing coming.
caltrek's comment: Future vocabulary word for the day - "pyrocumulonimbus."
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Yuli Ban
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^ Then you might be interested to learn that there are such things as pyrocumulonimbus tornados



There's a difference between pyro-tornadoes and fire whirls/fire devils

These are actual tornadoes with mesocyclonic convection caused by wildfire smoke and extreme heat. Fire whirls are rapidly rotating columns of fire that can reach thousands of degrees. I don't know which is scarier.
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weatheriscool
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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Record wildfire burns amid drought on Hawaii's Big Island
Source: AP

By CALEB JONES
HONOLULU (AP) — Firefighters gained more control over a wildfire in Hawaii that forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend and destroyed at least two homes on the Big Island, but officials warned that strong winds will return on Tuesday, raising the danger again.

Authorities have lifted evacuation orders but warned they could be reinstated at any time and that people should be ready to go.

“It’s the biggest (fire) we’ve ever had on this island,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said of the more than 62-square-mile (160-square-kilometer) blaze. “With the drought conditions that we’ve had, it is of concern. You see something like this where you’re putting thousands of homes in danger, it’s very concerning.”

Fires in Hawaii are unlike many of those burning in the U.S. West. They tend to break out in large grasslands on the dry sides of the islands and are generally much smaller than mainland fires.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... fce3be69a8
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Turkey saves power plant from 'unprecedented' wildfires
Source: AFP
Rescuers used helicopters and water cannon Wednesday to beat back fires encircling a Turkish power plant in the second week of deadly blazes testing the leadership of President Recept Tayyip Erdoga

More than 170 wildfires have scorched swathes of Turkey's southern coast and killed eight people since breaking out east of the Mediterranean vacation hotspot Antalya last Wednesday and then spreading we
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tu ... =Peregrine
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caltrek
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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One of the obvious factors behind U.S. wildfires is global warming. Another factor may be even more important and is competently discussed in the article below.

"Chronic Lack of Fire": The Paradox Fueling Megafires in The U.S.
by Susan J. Pritchard
August 3, 2021

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-chronic- ... tists-warn

or

https://theconversation.com/how-years-o ... day-163165 (same article)

(The Conversation) After so many smoke-filled summers and record-setting burns, residents of Western North America are no strangers to wildfires. Still, many questions are circulating about why forest fires are becoming larger and more severe – and what can be done about it.

Is climate change fueling these fires? Does the long history of fighting every fire play a role? Should we leave more fires to burn? What can be done about Western forests’ vulnerability to wildfires and climate change?

We invited 40 fire and forest ecologists living across the Western U.S. and Canada to examine the latest research and answer these questions in a set of studies published Aug. 2, 2021. Collectively, we are deeply concerned about the future of Western forests and communities under climate change.

So, why are wildfires getting worse?
,,,
Ironically, a chronic lack of fire in Western landscapes also contributes to increased fire severity and vulnerability to wildfires. It allows dry brush and live and dead trees to build up, and with more people living in wildland areas to spark blazes, pressure to fight every forest fire has increased the risk of extreme fire.
caltrek's comment: This is a very big problem. Partly, this is because of public opposition over the years to prescribed burning. People get upset about the smoke, the dangers of such fires getting out of control, etc.

Then, when the really big fires that transform the ecology (usually for the worse) occur, such voices are nowhere to be heard, or are complaining that fire fighting agencies failed to do the impossible. Yet another example of how public ignorance of science can have some very negative consequences.
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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Greece fires: 150 houses destroyed by wildfires as monks refuse to leave stricken island
Thu 5 Aug 2021

At least 150 houses have been destroyed by a raging fire that surrounded a monastery and a dozen villages on the Greek island of Evia, one of over 100 blazes burning in the country.

Firefighters were also continuing to battle a blaze near Athens on Thursday morning, while the mayor of Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, pleaded for help as flames threatened the site.

The blazes erupted as Greece is in the grip of a heatwave.

“We’re waging a battle of the titans!” deputy minister for civil protection Nikos Hardalias told journalists. “The hardest is still to come.”

Experts have warned that global heating is increasing both the frequency and intensity of such fires.

On Evia, the huge flames leaping up from the forest could be seen from the sea. Firefighters said it was a difficult blaze to control on an island of rolling hills with little visibility.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ken-island
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weatheriscool
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Video shows the Dixie Fire tearing through historic California town
Source: NBC News

Dramatic video captured the Dixie Fire, the largest wildfire burning in California, tearing through the small community of Greenville on Wednesday.

The footage showed homes and vehicles engulfed in flames, commercial structures gutted and buildings collapsed in the mountain community of around 800. The fire destroyed much of the historic California town and left it completely unrecognizable.

Among the buildings lost were a former sheriff's office, stores, restaurants, saloons and gas stations.
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/imag ... l-0742.jpg

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/vi ... n-n1276021
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Re: Wildfire news and discussion

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Dryer, warmer night air is making some Western wildfires more active at night
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-dryer-war ... stern.html
by Hannah Hickey, University of Washington
Firefighters have reported that Western wildfires are starting earlier in the morning and dying down later at night, hampering their ability to recover and regroup before the next day's flareup.

A study by University of Washington and U.S. Forest Service scientists shows why: The drying power of nighttime air over much of the Western U.S. has increased dramatically in the past 40 years. The paper was published online in July in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

"Nighttime is an important time in fire management. When fires die down at night it gives firefighters a chance to rest, move equipment and strategize. The problem firefighters are reporting is an unexpected increase in nighttime fire activity," said lead author Andy Chiodi, a UW research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean & Ecosystem Studies, a joint center with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Our findings support that this has been going on over the last 40 years over much, but not all, of the Western U.S."

Earth's atmosphere is warming due to climate change, and warming in many places has been greater at night. Warmer night air had been suspected as the culprit altering the daily pattern of wildfire activity, with burns continuing later into the night.
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