A brush fire near Oakhurst has prompted Madera County officials to order 1,562 homes evacuated Monday afternoon as fire crews and emergency workers from throughout the region converge on the foothill community.

The blaze, called the Junction fire, quickly blackened about 300 acres north of the town and is moving east from its starting point near Avenue 425-A and Quail Drive. Spot fires are being reported south of Highway 41 in Oakhurst.

Two structures are confirmed on fire or lost, and 300 homes are threatened. Power was reported out in Oakhurst.

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for all businesses and residents along the Highway 41 corridor between Highway 49 and Road 632 (Sky Ranch Road).

Evacuation orders include: Jean Road East and West, Scott Road, and Taylor Mountain (at the end of John West Road).

An evacuation warning has been issued for John West Road subdivision, and Indian Springs, Road 427, Pierce subdivision.

The fire also reportedly jumped Lewis Creek and is moving toward Road 222.

A major concern was the fire inside the Suburban Propane building at 41441 Highway 41, toward the northeast end of the community.

Suburban Propane started as a spot fire when flames jumped Highway 41, he said. The fire got into the attic and fire crews can't stop it without risking significant lives, according to one fire official.

Firefighters are concerned about building and the 30,000-gallon tanks on site. If the fire spreads beyond the building and heads for the tanks, firefighters were ordered to end the fight to save the facility. Evacuations were done a half-mile around Suburban Propane, said Don Stein, the division chief for Madera County Cal Fire.

"We will be in there as long as we can, but firefighter safety is an issue," he said.

Another fire official was heard on a scanner saying, "The tanks are going to do what they are going to do and it's going to be bad."

An intense earthquake swarm started yesterday under Bárðarbunga volcano, located under the northwestern part of the Vatnajökull ice cap. It is continuing at the moment and accompanied by elevated harmonic tremor. This might indicate a sub-glacial eruption at the volcano, but this needs yet to be confirmed. The last eruption of Bárðarbunga volcano was in 1797, while another eruption in 1910 took place at neighboring Hamarinn volcano.

When the winter rains failed to arrive in this Sacramento Valley town for the third straight year, farmers tightened their belts and looked to the reservoirs in the nearby hills to keep them in water through the growing season.

When those faltered, some switched on their well pumps, drawing up thousands of gallons from underground aquifers to prevent their walnut trees and alfalfa crops from drying up. Until the wells, too, began to fail.

Now, across California's vital agricultural belt, nervousness over the state's epic drought has given way to alarm. Streams and lakes have long since shriveled up in many parts of the state, and now the aquifers - always a backup source during the region's periodic droughts - are being pumped away at rates that scientists say are both historic and unsustainable.

One state-owned well near Sacramento registered an astonishing 100-foot drop in three months as the water table, strained by new demand from farmers, homeowners and municipalities, sank to a record low. Other wells have simply dried up, in such numbers that local drilling companies are reporting backlogs of six to eight months to dig a new one.

Event Time
2014-08-18 02:32:05 UTC
2014-08-18 07:02:05 UTC+04:30 at epicenter

Location
32.739°N 47.670°E depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities
36km (22mi) SE of Abdanan, Iran
37km (23mi) E of Dehloran, Iran
78km (48mi) WNW of Dezful, Iran
81km (50mi) NW of Shush, Iran
312km (194mi) ESE of Baghdad, Iraq

Scientific Data

Floods and landslides following torrential rain in western Japan have killed at least two people and prompted one city to advise more than 80,000 people to flee their homes, officials said on Sunday.

One man was confirmed dead in Kyoto city early on Sunday after he was swept away by a flooded river while trying to build a sandbag barrier, Kyoto prefectural officials said.

In nearby Ishikawa prefecture, the body of a 74-year-old woman was pulled from her house after a landslide, national broadcaster NHK said.

Californians are seeing more than just garbage patches in the ocean - they're also seeing an unusual amount of sharks, according to KTLA 5.

Locals are reporting a noticeable spike in shark sightings off the coast of Southern California this summer. Experts believe a variety of factors are contributing to the increased number of sightings, including clearer water causing more visibility.

But the spike isn't just about more people looking for sharks. There actually have been more sharks, and experts say it's because of the weather.

The Sydney Morning Herald carefully removed the scientific arguments from an article today. Are they afraid their readers are not smart enough to reach the "right" conclusions if exposed to the wrong information? Hey, but its only national policy and billions of dollars at stake.

Today Maurice Newman warned that we are not prepared for climate change (he's talking about the cold kind). The Australian published his thoughts citing Archibald, Usoskin, Svensmark, Brekke, Lockwood and Curry. Their readers are apparently clever enough to handle discussions of cosmic rays and large hadron colliders.

In Sydney Morning Herald, Latika Bourke and Lisa Cox write an article about Newman's views, but carefully omit all of the scientific arguments, as well as the potential problems with one sided science funding and the names and credentials of the scientists he talks about. The pair do, however, find space to repeat the litany of the IPCC's estimate of 95% "probability" (it's hard to believe Sydney Morning Herald readers have not heard this before). They don't mention that the IPCC estimate is a speculative and unscientific number which gets paradoxically higher as the IPCC's predictions are proven wrong. Nor did they interview Newman and ask him his opinion of this.

Rather than talking about possibilities that scientists are discussing, it was more important to remind SMH readers that Prime Minister Abbott once said climate change was "absolute crap". How that helps the nation decide on national climate policy is not made clear, though the implication is: skeptics only have dumb arguments. No doubt SMH readers will understand which opinion they are supposed to hold, and "lucky" for them, journalists Bourke and Cox are experts on atmospheric physics, particle collisions, and climate modeling. If only they'd explained the flaws in Maurice Newman's arguments instead of concealing them, the whole nation would have been better off.

One day, the poor SMH readers, like ABC viewers, might be shocked when they discover how they were fed propaganda lines by dutiful journalists who, no doubt, thought they were doing a good job. Still, one great thing about the SMH is that the citizens of Australia don't have to pay for it if they don't want to.

The Australian's readers already know the IPCC position. The editors there, dare to give us the other side as well:

Readers may recall that the Grímsvötn volcano caused quite an overwrought mess with air travel in 2011 when it erupted. FergalR writes in WUWT Tips and Notes about the nearby Bárðarbunga volcano becoming seismically active:

A large sub-glacial volcano in Iceland - Bárðarbunga - has been having a huge earthquake swarm for the last 24 hours.

The IMO have just raised the eruption alert level on it.

This pipe truck is the latest victim of China's 'swiss cheese' landscape, swallowed by a 40-square-meter, 6-meter deep sinkhole in Guangxi. Fortunately, no casualties have been reported.

After days of heavy rain, a band of low pressure will hit the UK on Sunday and bring cooler weather for much of next week, according to forecasters. The sweltering summer is about to become a distant memory with a dramatic plunge in temperatures.

The Met Office is expecting unsettled windy conditions, with a mix of sunshine and showers, and possibly even snow on higher ground in Scotland. Spokeswoman Nicky Maxey said today:"It's getting cooler, definitely. It's the end of the summer - autumn starts on September 1. We have some colder northerly winds coming in and temperatures will drop next week. We're looking at average or below average temperatures and the night-time low could be down to single figures."