Wildfires
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Fire

California wildfires: Lightning-sparked blazes explode in size to become some of the largest in state history

California wildfires 2020
© APFirefighters take refuge in their trucks in a cleared field as a wildfire also known as the Hennessey Fire jumped Knoxville Berryessa Road, west of Sacramento
Lightning-sparked wildfires in California have exploded in size to become some of the largest in state history, forcing thousands to flee and destroying hundreds of homes.

More than 12,000 firefighters assisted by helicopters and air tankers continue to battle wildfires throughout northern California.

Three groups of fires, called complexes, are burning north, east and south of San Francisco and have together scorched 991 square miles, destroyed more than 500 structures and killed five people.

At least 100,000 people are under evacuation orders.

The number of firefighters assigned to the sprawling LNU Complex - a cluster of blazes burning in the heart of wine country north of San Francisco - doubled to more than 1,000 firefighters Friday, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said.


Comment: See also:


Fire

Pine Gulch Fire burning near Grand Junction is now 2nd largest fire in Colorado history

fire
© Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team
The Pine Gulch Fire continues to burn on the western slope, north of Grand Junction, and is steadily approaching state history. A Wednesday update on acres burned now puts it second only behind the Hayman Fire on the list of largest in Colorado history.

Currently, the fire has burned 125,108 acres, according to the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. For reference, the Hayman Fire burned 137,760 acres in 2002. The Spring Creek Fire, which was second on the list, burned 108,045 acres in southern Colorado in 2018.


Fire

Pilot killed as California wildfires rage after 11,000 lightning strikes in 72 hours

California wildfires
© GETTY IMAGESVacaville, halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco, has been worst hit so far
A pilot has been killed and thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes in California after lightning strikes sparked hundreds of fires across the US state.

Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes have been recorded in California over 72 hours, in the heaviest spate of thunderstorms to hit the state in more than a decade.

A total of 367 individual fires were ignited, with more two dozen growing into major blazes, authorities said.

A helicopter pilot was killed after the aircraft crashed while on a water-dropping mission in Fresno County, about 160 miles south of San Francisco, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) said.

Multiple fires raced through northern California's wine country, shutting down the major Interstate 80 motorway at Fairfield, about 35 miles southwest of Sacramento.

Flames leapt across the motorway, trapping motorists caught in a hectic evacuation.


Comment: First ever firenado warning in California as wildfires rage into third day


Fire

Pine Gulch Fire grows to 87,209 acres - almost third-largest wildfire in Colorado history

fires
The Pine Gulch Fire has grown to more than 87,000 acres, fire officials announced Tuesday morning.

As of 7:45 a.m., the fire was estimated at 87,209 acres and remains 7% contained, according to the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team.

It is the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado history.

Click here for an interactive map of the fire.

Denver7 is expecting to learn more about Monday's efforts and Tuesday's firefighting plan this morning.

The Pine Gulch Fire was first reported on July 31 about 18 miles north of Grand Junction. It was caused by lightning.


Cloud Lightning

Lightning sparks fresh wildfires across California

wilfires california lightning
© AP Photo/Noah BergerSmoke from a wildfire, one of several that comprise the Deer Zone fires, billows over unincorporated Contra Costa County, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020
A rare summer thunderstorm brought lightning that sparked several small blazes in Northern California on Sunday and stoked a huge wildfire that has forced hundreds of people from their homes north of Los Angeles.

More than 4,500 buildings remained threatened by the fire burning toward thick, dry brush in the Angeles National Forest. Firefighters already battling the blaze in steep, rugged terrain with scorching heat faced more hurdles when hundreds of lightning strikes and winds up to 15 mph (24 kph) pushed the flames uphill.

"We set up a containment line at the top of the hills so the fire doesn't spill over to the other side and cause it to spread, but it was obviously difficult given the erratic wind and some other conditions," said fire spokesman Jake Miller.

Comment: More spectacular clips from the crazy weather/fires in California:








Attention

Best of the Web: First ever firenado warning in California as wildfires rage into third day

Firenado
© nevada_traveler/TwitterFirenado spotted in California on the 16th August 2020
The Loyalton Fire currently raging in California, as seen in this one-hour timelapse, produced a fiery vortex on Saturday, leading the National Weather Service to issue its first-ever tornado warning for a twister spawned by fire.

Apparently running out of cataclysmic events to throw at us this year, Mother Nature decided to reach deep into her bag of tricks and pull out a Biblical classic: swirling hellfire.

The National Weather Service issued its first-ever tornado warning for a twister spawned by fire early Saturday afternoon after a wildfire in Northern California produced a towering, flaming vortex. While not unheard of, fire tornadoes are some of the rarest weather phenomena on Earth, and meteorologists are saying this is the first time one's received an official tornado warning.

Comment: As the original title noted: You can mark firenado off of your 2020 apocalypse bingo card.

More footage has emerged on Twitter:


And this isn't the first firenado that's been spawned from this wildfire:


In Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection Pierre Lescaudron explicates the drivers behind wind vortices of all kinds:
The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power. Because of this similarity, we will refer to these three phenomena collectively as 'air spirals' in the following discussion.

McCanney [in his book Planet-X, Comets and Earth Changes] describes the electric nature of hurricanes in these terms:
A simple model showed that these [tropical] storms formed when electrical currents connected between the ionosphere and the top of the clouds. [...] the reason hurricanes lost power when they approached land was that the powering electrical current from the ionosphere to the cloud tops and to the Earth's surface had no connection (anode) while over the ocean so it drew up vast surface areas of ionized air from the ocean surface and sucked them up a central column (the spinning vortex was caused by the moist air rising 'up the drain')  whereas the land provided a 'ground' for the current and therefore it shunted out the storm's power source. [...] I also calculated that the warm water theory for hurricane development lacked sufficient energy to account for the energy in these massive storms. We later witnessed hurricanes on Mars where there is no water at all. Clearly, the warm water concept did not work [...]1
From this perspective, air spirals are simply the manifestation of electric discharges between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface. The image above shows a waterspout and a lightning bolt occurring in the same place at the same time, suggesting that indeed electric potential difference between the clouds at the top of the picture and the ground at the bottom is what powers both the lightning and the tornado.This additional feature of dust particles - their ability to carry an electric charge - means that dust accumulation enables any given area of the atmosphere to carry potentially massive electric charges, which can differ from the charge of adjacent regions, from the charge of the ionosphere and from the charge of the Earth's surface.
See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?


Fire

Thousands of hectares of forest in Algeria ravaged by fire - 1,216 wildfires in 2 months

fire
Algeria's president on Sunday ordered an "immediate" investigation into forest fires that have ravaged thousands of hectares across the country in recent days, his office said. The enquiry aims to "determine the causes of fires that have ravaged vast stretches of forest". Local media have reported that the fires also destroyed homes, but the statement from President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's office made no mention of such incidents.


Fire

'Everything is burning': Argentina's delta fires rage out of control

Pillars of fire across the river from Rosario.
© Cristina Mazzia/Taller EcologistaPillars of fire across the river from Rosario.
Cattle ranching and drought have turned the Paraná River grasslands to tinder, threatening disaster for the area's wildlife

A raging fire described as "completely out of control" is threatening one of South America's major wetland ecosystems. The fire has been burning for months now, and is visible from the balconies of luxury apartments along the shoreline of the Paraná River in Argentina's central city of Rosario

Locals have been sharing photos and videos of the fires on social media.


Fire

Apple wildfire: Thousands ordered to evacuate as southern California blaze grows

Apple fire, California
© EPAMore than 1,300 firefighters are fighting the blaze with help from aircraft
Thousands of people were under evacuation orders Sunday after a wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles exploded in size as crews battled the flames in triple-digit heat.

The fire, dubbed the Apple Fire by local firefighters, was straddling Riverside and San Bernardino counties and consumed more than 23sq miles (about 60sq km) of dry brush and timber, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

There was zero containment early Sunday. The cause is under investigation.

The blaze began as two adjacent fires reported Friday evening in Cherry Valley, an unincorporated area near the city of Beaumont about 85 miles (137km) east of downtown Los Angeles.

Flames leapt along brushy ridge tops and came close to homes while firefighters attacked it from the ground and air.


Fire

Greek fire brigade fights at 72 fronts to bring blazes under control

Fire burns near the village of Galataki as authorities evacuate the place near Corinth, Greece. July 22, 2020
© Petros Giannakouris/APFire burns near the village of Galataki as authorities evacuate the place near Corinth, Greece. July 22, 2020
Fires are raging in Greece with efforts continuing to put them out.

A blaze at the popular spa area of Loutraki, Corinthia prefecture, was placed under control after it broke out at a forested area.

Fire Brigade operations were successful and managed to save evacuated homes in the area caught in the line of fire.

The Drassa settlement in the Corinthia prefecture was evacuated on Thursday as the fire that started on Wednesday at Kehries is burning "out of control," Corinth Mayor Vassilis Nanopoulos told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), adding that a summer camp t Sofiko was also evacuated.

Mayor Nanopoulos requested that the government and the Peloponnese Regional authority declare the municipality in a state of emergency as 268 firefighters with 61 fire engines and 15 grounds teams battled the blaze and high winds created multiple pockets of fire.