Wildfires in your area 2024
To hear our national news, you get the impression that the entirety of the West Coast is burning. Even this map seems to indicate we are on fire. It also highlights the wildfires in Canada.
The map is from a combination of satellite data provided by NASA and the US Forest Service, through the (US) National Interagency Fire Center.
In actuality the Western part of the US has forty seven major fires at this time. There are seven within a two hour driving radius where I live. Consequently, we have a lot of smoke, though the air quality measurements show we are in the moderate zone.
We are not the only ones burning. I wonder what it is like in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia/New Zealand etc.
In the past, we welcomed Australian firefighters to assist in our area. From the sounds of it, that mutual aid program is stretched to the limit.
The map is from a combination of satellite data provided by NASA and the US Forest Service, through the (US) National Interagency Fire Center.
In actuality the Western part of the US has forty seven major fires at this time. There are seven within a two hour driving radius where I live. Consequently, we have a lot of smoke, though the air quality measurements show we are in the moderate zone.
We are not the only ones burning. I wonder what it is like in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia/New Zealand etc.
In the past, we welcomed Australian firefighters to assist in our area. From the sounds of it, that mutual aid program is stretched to the limit.
Comments
My sister lives in France, not far from the foothills of the Pyrenees, and wildfires are certainly common in that part of the world, though not at the moment AFAIK. August may well see some...
I heard most of Europe was too wet. One certainly saw that at the opening of the Games, at least in Paris.
I think the "out of control" bit is key here.
After a wet winter, this year won't be so bad, but it's now so hot (40° expected here today) that it wouldn't take much to turn the whole place into a tinderbox.
I'm glad that they were able to support your fighters. Almost all bush fire firefighters here are volunteers and I assume those that went were also.
Out of control, and in a wildland - an out of control house fire is not a wildfire.
In California the worst wildfires occur because people want to live in the wildland-urban interface - understandable, because you get the comforts of living in a developed area and the beauty of living in an undeveloped area. There are moves to get people to make their homes and yards fire-resistant, but without very different building practices, if you live in a canyon or in a forest, sooner or later your house is going to be threatened by wildfire.
Another huge problem is that we have mismanaged fires for a century - wildfire is natural and necessary to many areas in the western US, but we've suppressed them, not allowing repeated small fires to burn, so vegetation grows and grows and then eventually burns in a huge fire we can't control. The indigenous peoples worked with the natural landscape and understood the necessity of fire; some places are finally getting a clue and reviving the practices of the people who were driven off the land.
Add in climate change, and it's a recipe for disaster. The cost of home owner's insurance is going up fast, and there are places where insurance companies don't want to write policies at all, so people get bare bones policies from the state.
I realize it's easy for me to say when I live in an entirely urban environment where earthquakes are the biggest natural risk, but I question whether it's a good idea for so many people to live in inherently fire-prone areas. On top of the risks to their lives and homes, they're damaging the natural environments out there.
There were many other fires, including another big one on the South Coast of NSW.
Hereabouts, we only saw flames once, but had 57 days of smoke from the end of November 2019.
At least 34 people died, including 3 Canadian/US pilots of a water bomber. Black Summer 2019-2020
@Ruth, Does burning off [Controlled fires in cooler, stiller weather] not happen where you are?
We had a congregation member who as a firefighter was devastated at the destruction and carried some guilt for the inability to do more, I don't know how many firetrucks we have here, but do recall passing interstate fire trucks coming to our aid when we returned home early from a family gathering. We were not under direct threat, but do remember the city shutting down and everyone remaining at home cleaning up their properties when it looked like fires might approach the city again from a different direction. Kindly neighbours helped with our yard clean up and husband and I worked in 40+ heat cutting back all plants under the powerlines located in our back yard.
I too worry about people's desire to live remotely and close to or in national parks. With climate change we see some areas of the country flooding more frequently than previously and I think perhaps other areas will be no go zones due to fire risk. Two friends are involved in Rural bush fire brigade and another worry is the lack of younger people volunteering and those brigades are ageing.
Climate change has lead to major wildfire issues in most of Canada except NB and PEI over the last few years.
Yes, there are controlled burns here, but there are still plenty of places that haven't burned in a long time. There was a large wildfire a couple of years ago near Santa Barbara, California in an area that hadn't burned since the 50s.
Many of our active Canadian shipmates are in eastern Canada, and may not have personal experience of Jasper. I guess for eastern Canadians, it would be like terrible destruction to Peggy's Cove? You may not have been there recently, but you've either been there yourself or the rest of your family has been there.
Closer to home, the fires have been further north, threatening indigenous people on reserve. For the majority of the population in Manitoba, the presence has been hazy sky this past week.
The forest service has ordered evacuation of the town, but the residents have chosen to stay and fight. We are talking about 90 to 95 people. They have established a fire line on the east side of town and set up a large sprinkler line around the town to try to protect it.
In the Idaho panhandle, three small towns are being threatened by the same fire. So far, 65 structures have burned down.
The good news is, we have had a series of heavy down pours today, about an inch per hour. That type of rain puts fires out.
The use of Catalina type Super Scoopers is amazing. Last year I witnessed the Super Scoopers in action on a fire in Idaho. They will fly onto a lake, open up two scoopers and strip water off the lake, return to the air, fly to the fire, and return to take on another load within minutes. They need about a mile of water at least nine feet deep to do their thing.
Yes, they wore developed in Canada by Bombardier, but they are used worldwide now.
In fact, Oregon just set a record (since records have been kept) for the land area burned in a season, and we are still a week short of the normal peak. The total currently stands at 1.4 million acres,or 2200 square miles. (That's about 5800 square km for those using more modern measurement units.) Fortunately, there haven't been a lot of homes or lives lost so far. But we still remember the fires of early September 2020, when 1800 square miles (4800 square km) and thousands of homes were burned in just a few days... and we're still in August. (We had camped in that area with our grandson just a couple weeks previously.)
And that's just one state. My cousins had to evacuate for the big fire in California as they did for the one that burned the town of Paradise some years back. Some friends there have been burned over twice in 5 years, and were threatened again this year. My brother has evacuated twice, and in one case was out defending his business in the middle of a city when a raging fire stopped a couple blocks short.
Last month my wife was helping family on Maui then they got an order to evacuate their house in the city limits, due to a nearby brush fire. She was there alone at the time, so had to figure out what to put in the car. Fortunately the fire was controlled and the order lifted in a couple of hours. That was less than a year after the fire that destroyed Lahaina, which still has a major impact on the island.
In my younger years I was called upon to fight a few forest fires, but not like the behemoths we are seeing these days. One of them a few years back jumped across the Columbia River, at a point where it is about half a mile (800m) wide. It's sobering to look at the maps and see how much of the area where I have worked and visited has since burned.
In some ways, it is good to have the forest burn now, but the fuel load is intense.
They say it will not burn out until the snows come. Fortunately, they are predicting a wet winter.
But this past week it was so much worse! The smoke settled over the trees, houses, roads, affecting visibility. Earlier in the week I thought, "This looks like Beijing" at its most polluted. Air quality warnings extended to all - all advised to stay indoors, limit outdoor exposure and exercise.
It seems we were at an unfortunate confluence of winds carrying forest fire smoke - both down from the Canadian North and up from fires in Colorado.
In the worst of it, there seemed to be fewer people out and about, and more of them wearing masks.
N95 masks were advised for all, to prevent particulate matter in the smoke from causing lung damage.