Wildfires
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Fire

7 people killed in wildfires in Portugal

Wildfires have affected Portugal
© EPAWildfires have affected Portugal for several days
At least seven people, including three firefighters, have died as wildfires continue to rage across Portugal, according to local news outlets.

Parts of the country have been ablaze since the weekend, with temperatures in some areas topping 30C (86F). The northern and central parts have been worst affected.

The firefighters - two women and a man - died while tackling a blaze in Tábua in Coimbra, central Portugal, the country's civil protection authority said.

More than 5,000 firefighters have been tackling the wildfires that Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said are "raging across the country".


Fire

Animals flee huge wildfire in Bolivia as national emergency declared

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Animals fled raging forest fires in Bolivia as a national emergency was declared on Saturday, 7 September.

Environment minister Alan Lisperguer said 3.8 million hectares had been affected to date.

According to Inpe, Brazil's space research agency that monitors fires, Bolivia has seen the largest number of wildfires since 2010 with at least 3 million hectares (7.5 million acres) burned in 2024 alone.

It comes amid the peak fire season in South America, which usually spans throughout August and September.


Arrow Down

Climate Science goes full-bore witchcraft: Your beefsteak makes bridges fall like Tinker-Toys

Climate Propaganda
© NYT
The Modern West is regressing to 8th Century occult science

Today the supposed "newspaper of record" for the most powerful nation on Earth is effectively telling people that the steak they eat, the car they drive and the heater they use could cause bridges to collapse "'like Tinkertoys". But you'll have to join the dots yourself, because they never do. No one asks the experts: How many Tofu-burgers does it take to save Brooklyn Bridge? How many bus trips will we need to save the Golden Gate?

The worlds leading journalists never ask the obvious questions. They just leave a trail of breadcrumbs: Man makes CO2, CO2 causes Spooky weather and Spooky weather eats bridges. So good people drive EV's!

Each breadcrumb looks like bread, like it might be real, but no one sees the whole loaf and before you know it, everyone is lost in the woods, installing solar panels to save their bridges.

Two days ago the breadcrumbs said "good people go without air conditioners".

Things are so bad the New York Times tells us that on a 95 degree day in summer, one bridge in Manhattan got stuck open "for hours". (The tragedy). Another time a railway bridge in Iowa got washed away and some pavement buckled in Maine.

The truth is that US bridges are a miracle. There are, seriously, more than 600,000 bridges across the country and yet this was all the catastrophe they could find in the leading paragraph. We're supposed to believe that we're in a bridge crisis, and that "extreme" heat, floods and "snap weather changes" are new, and worse, and we're causing it.

Fire

Wildfires affecting 30 cities in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, leave 2 dead

A drone view shows a fire in a sugar cane plantation near Dumon city, Brazil, August 24, 2024
© Joel SilvaA drone view shows a fire in a sugar cane plantation near Dumon city, Brazil, August 24, 2024
Brazil's Sao Paulo state said that wildfire outbreaks were affecting or closing in on 30 of its cities on Friday evening, adding two people had died in an industrial plant trying to hold back the flames.

The cities have been affected by dry, hot weather in recent days, the government said in a statement.

The state government also warned that forest fires could spread rapidly from gusts of wind, potentially razing large areas of natural vegetation.

For now, the government has not reported flames directly reaching the city of Sao Paulo, Latin America's largest by population with more than 11 million residents.

Still, local media reported smoke blocking out some parts of state capital's sky.


Fire

Wildfires burn over 6% of Portugal's Madeira island in 1 week

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A forest fire on the southern coast of Portugal's island of Madeira has scorched more than 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) of land, or 6.4% of the island's total area, over the past week.

The fire, which began on Aug. 14, remains uncontrolled and is causing significant concern in the southern coastal areas of Camara de Lobos and Ponta do Sol, as well as in the mountainous Pico Ruivo region.

Data from the European Forest Fire Information System indicates that the fire has affected more than 5,000 hectares on the island so far.

The Portuguese National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection (ANEPC) has faced strong criticism from unions and opposition parties for its handling of the situation. In response, the agency has deployed a 60-member special unit to assist in firefighting efforts.


Volcano

Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico spews clouds of gas and ash on August 12

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The Popocatepetl volcano in central Mexico spewed water vapour, gas, and ash high into the sky on Monday, the country's disaster prevention agency (CENAPRED) reported.


Fire

Thousands evacuated as wildfires reach Athens

A wildfire threatens homes near Athens on 11 August
© ReutersA wildfire threatens homes near Athens on 11 August
Thousands of residents have been evacuated from their homes as large wildfires reach the suburbs of Athens, with some flames leaping as high as 25m (80ft).

Homes and properties in nearby towns such as Varnavas as well as northeastern parts of the Greek capital are on fire, including a school in Nea Penteli.

With the sun setting, aircraft working to extinguish the flames have been forced to land, making it a ground operation overnight.

Residents are complaining there are not enough fire trucks and firefighters to help, as Greek authorities request international assistance.


Fire

Fast moving wildfires force 25,000 to evacuate historic Canadian town

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© Reuters
Fast moving wildfires in the Canadian Rockies have forced around 25,000 people to flee the idyllic tourist town of Jasper.

Flames have devastated up to half of the structures in the town as a "wall of flames" climbed above treetops, officials said.

While there have been no immediate injury reports after the mass evacuation, town Mayor Richard Ireland said the wildfire has "ravaged our beloved community."


Comment: CBS News reported on the 25th of July:
A wildfire that roared into the community of Jasper, Alta., late Wednesday, incinerating vast stretches of the townsite, has grown to 36,000 hectares, more than quadrupling in size since Tuesday.

Alberta government officials said preliminary estimates suggest 30 to 50 per cent of the town's structures may have burned. Officials from Parks Canada, the lead agency on the fire, confirmed many buildings were lost, but declined to comment on the full extent of the damage.

[...]

Firefighters on site are still battling fires moving from one building to another. The "most significant" damage is in west Jasper and southwest of Miette Avenue, while the east side was spared from "significant damage."

All critical infrastructure — including the hospital, emergency services building, schools, activity centre and wastewater treatment plant — were protected, the Facebook post said. But "a number" of bridges in town and throughout the national park were damaged.

[...]

"The fuels were right and the conditions were extreme," Flannigan said. "It was such a high-intensity fire and the winds were pushing it up the valley, and fires love to run up and down valleys.
UPDATE August 9th:
Out-of-control wildfires continue raging across western Canada, fueled by hot, dry conditions while fire crews say they are preparing for a months-long fight against the blaze that torched the historic town of Jasper on the Alberta-B.C. border. Further east, optimal weather conditions across Ontario are producing an active wildfire count that is well below seasonal average, forest ministry officials say.



Fire

Unprecedented wildfires ravage Brazil's wetlands

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As Jose Cleiton and Brandao Amilton ride their horses into the vastness of the Pantanal grassy wetlands of Brazil, a wall of smoke towers from the horizon far into the sky above.

The worst of the dry season is still far off, but already these Brazilian wetlands are so dry that wildfires are surging.

The number of Pantanal fires so far this year has jumped tenfold from the same period last year according to Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (INPE).

"It's hard to breathe. It's hard for newborn children. The heat gets stronger and stronger," said Amilton, a local fishing guide. "The Pantanal is already hot and it gets hotter, drier, with smoke, the weather gets very bad."

The men guide cattle across the flood plain, hoping for a better chance of survival. "The way the fire is coming, it could surround them and burn them to death," said Cleiton, a farmer.


Fire

Wildfires have led to the evacuation of thousands of Canadians

The view from one of our flight crews as they worked to evacuate patients from Fort Nelson last night.
© BC Emergency Health ServicesThe view from one of our flight crews as they worked to evacuate patients from Fort Nelson last night.
Wildfire season has arrived in full force in Western Canada, prompting evacuation orders and alerts in several towns in British Columbia and neighboring Alberta due to the danger of uncontrolled blazes.

Hundreds of residents in four neighborhoods in the southern end of Canada's oil sand hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, were ordered to evacuate with a wildfire threatening the community, authorities said.

A large wildfire is slowly approaching the major Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray and around 6,000 people in four suburbs have been told to evacuate, local officials said.

With over 100 active wildfires burning in Canada, wildfire smoke has drifted across the border into the United States, prompting Minnesota officials to issue the state's first air quality alert of 2024.