Wildfires and other fire incidents

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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/

[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.

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.

[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

[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.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Lake Tahoe threatened by massive fire, more ordered to flee
Source: AP

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Fire officials ordered more evacuations around the Tahoe Basin Sunday evening as crews dealt with a two-week old blaze they said was “more aggressive than anticipated,” and continued to edge toward the pristine waters of Lake Tahoe.

“Today’s been a rough day and there’s no bones about it,” said Jeff Marsoleis, forest supervisor for El Dorado National Forest. A few days ago, he thought crews could halt the Caldor Fire’s eastern progress, but “today it let loose.”

Flames churned through mountains just a few miles southwest of the Tahoe Basin, where thick smoke sent tourists packing at a time when summer vacations would usually be in full swing ahead of the Labor Day weekend.

“To put it in perspective, we’ve been seeing about a half-mile of movement on the fire’s perimeter each day for the last couple of weeks, and today, this has already moved at 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) on us, with no sign that it’s starting to slow down,” said Cal Fire Division Chief Eric Schwab.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-lakes- ... a8915eebce

[weatheriscool]

California fire approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation
Source: AP

By SAM METZ and JANIE HAR

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.

“It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Additional strike teams arrived just after dark and many of the new firefighters were immediately dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from South Lake Tahoe, said fire spokesman Dominic Polito.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... a980f4deda

[weatheriscool]

Official reports progress in defending Lake Tahoe from fire
Source: AP

By SAM METZ, JANIE HAR and JOHN ANTCZAK

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters reported progress Wednesday in the battle to save communities on the south end of Lake Tahoe from an approaching forest fire after the stiff winds and searing temperatures they had feared failed to materialize in the California-Nevada alpine region.

“We lucked out a little bit yesterday with some of the winds that didn’t come up quite as hard as we expected them to,” Tim Ernst, an operations section chief, told firefighters in a morning briefing.

An inversion layer, a cap of warm air over cooler air, then developed in the early morning hours “that put a real damper on things, slowed a lot of growth,” Ernst said. “So a lot of opportunity to make a lot of progress last night.”

The Caldor Fire has been burning toward Lake Tahoe from the southwest along California Highway 50, climbing over a high-elevation Sierra Nevada summit and descending into the Tahoe Basin.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-so ... 553f0b7684

[weatheriscool]

California fire approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation
Source: AP

By SAM METZ and JANIE HAR

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave.

The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.

“It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Additional strike teams arrived just after dark and many of the new firefighters were immediately dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from South Lake Tahoe, said fire spokesman Dominic Polito.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... a980f4deda

[weatheriscool]

Lake Tahoe evacuees hope to return home as wildfire slows
Source: Associated Press

By DAISY NGUYEN 46 minutes ago

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters are making progress on a California wildfire threatening South Lake Tahoe, officials said Saturday, lifting hopes for tens of thousands of residents who are waiting this weekend to return to the resort town.

Lighter winds and higher humidity continue to reduce the spread of flames, and fire crews were quick to take advantage by doubling down on burning and cutting fire lines around the Caldor Fire.

Bulldozers with giant blades, crews armed with shovels and a fleet of aircraft dropping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and fire retardant helped keep the fire’s advance to a couple of thousand acres — a fraction of its explosive spread last month and the smallest increase in two weeks.

“The incident continues to look better and better every day,” Tim Burton, an operations chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, told firefighters at a Saturday briefing. “A large part of that is due to your hard work as well as the weather cooperating in the last week or so.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-fi ... 75fa0845b8

[weatheriscool]

Evacuations lifted for thousands in Tahoe as wildfire stalls
Source: AP

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Tens of thousands of people who fled South Lake Tahoe in the teeth of a wildfire were returning home as crews finally managed to stall the advance of flames scant miles from the resort.

But authorities warned that residents of the scenic forest area on the California-Nevada state line weren’t out of the woods yet, with risks ranging from smoky, foul air to belligerent bears.

Evacuation orders for South Lake Tahoe and other lakeside areas were downgraded to warnings on Sunday afternoon and California Highway Patrol officers began removing roadblocks along State Highway 50 from Nevada to the city limits.

The threat from the Caldor Fire hasn’t entirely vanished but downgrading to a warning meant those who wish could return to their homes in what had been a smoke-choked ghost town instead of a thriving Labor Day getaway location.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... d018724831

[weatheriscool]

Wildfire forces closure of part of freeway in California
Source: AP

CASTIAC, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire near Castaic Saturday has led to the closure of a part of a major freeway in Southern California, officials told local media.

The fire, known as the Route Fire, reached 392 acres, or a little more than half a square mile, as of 6:28 p.m. and forced the shutdown of a section of Interstate 5, an Angeles National Forest spokesperson told KTLA-TV.

KTLA reported that the Route Fire is threatening structures, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Santa Clarita Valley station.

The fire was uncontained as of 6:30 p.m., authorities said.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-enviro ... 65a9f73c4c

[caltrek]

Gigantic Plankton Bloom Larger Than Australia Spawned by Intense Bushfire Blazes
by David Nield
September 16, 2021

https://www.sciencealert.com/australia- ... -continent

Introduction:

(Science Alert) As well as the local and immediate threat to life and property they present, bushfires can also have far-reaching, long-lasting consequences for the rest of the planet, as was the case with the huge Australian bushfires of the summer of 2019/2020.

A new study combining satellite data with measurements in the field reveals one of these consequences: a giant phytoplankton bloom larger than the entirety of Australia, located in the northernmost waters of the Southern Ocean, to the south east of Australia.

Such huge spikes in organic material aren't quite the win for marine ecosystems we might imagine. Quite the opposite, as the vast cloud of organisms can make for a potential toxic soup in the ocean.

"Explosive blooms of plankton can be deadly to animals," says paleobiologist Chris Hays from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, who wasn't involved with the research.

Further extract:

However, phytoplankton blooms act as carbon sinks. Such was the size of the one created by the bushfires, researchers think that it could have sucked in almost all of the carbon dioxide released by the burning.

[wjfox]

F***ing tragedy if this burns down.


California fires: General Sherman and other sequoias given blankets

57 minutes ago

Firefighters are wrapping fire-resistant blankets around ancient trees as blazes tear through California's world-famous Sequoia National Park.

Officials fear the fire could reach the Giant Forest, a grove of some of the world's biggest trees, within hours.

The forest hosts some 2,000 sequoias, including the 275ft (83m) General Sherman, the biggest tree by volume on Earth and about 2,500 years old.

The Colony and Paradise fires have been growing for a week.

More than 350 firefighters, along with helicopters and water-dropping planes, have been mobilised to battle the blazes.

They have wrapped several trees, including the General Sherman, with aluminium foil to protect them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58592376