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Fire

Gran Canaria: 4,000 evacuated as wildfires rip through island for second time in a week


Sky News
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 01:31 UTC
Gran Canaria wildfires

Thousands of people have been evacuated in the area around Valleseco
Thousands of people have been evacuated from dozens of towns on Gran Canaria as firefighters battle to contain out-of-control wildfires.

The fires, which broke out on Saturday for the second time in a week, have forced around 4,000 people to evacuate at least 40 towns near Valleseco, a town situated on the north of the popular tourist island.

They had spread in two different directions and razed more than 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) by Sunday afternoon, according to the island's provincial government.

There is currently a huge operation under way involving nine helicopters, two planes and 600 emergency responders to control the fires, which officials say has "great potential" to spread further.

Angel Victor Torres, the Canary Islands' regional president, told a news conference that the blaze was neither "contained nor stabilised or controlled".


Comment: Huge wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain sparks mass evacuation

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Fire

Strong winds and high temperatures fuel breakout of dozens of wildfires across Greece


Yahoo News
Mon, 12 Aug 2019 08:14 UTC
Tourists evacuated from camp as wildfire rages on Greek island

Tourists evacuated from camp as wildfire rages on Greek island
Strong winds and high temperatures helped stoke dozens of wildfires across Greece.

The Fire Service said 63 broke out between 7 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday.


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Fire

Massive wildfire spreads rapidly in Athens suburb overnight, sparking evacuations


RT
Mon, 12 Aug 2019 13:22 UTC
Fire in Ymittos, Athens, Greece last night, August 11/12

Fire in Ymittos, Athens, Greece last night, August 11/12
A huge blaze prompted early morning evacuations in a suburb of the Greek capital. At least 140 firefighters and 46 vehicles were dispatched to battle the wildfire.

Locals in the city's eastern suburb of Paiania were awoken by authorities in the middle of the night to evacuate their houses. However, a spokesman for the fire service said there is no information on how many people fled.

Fanned by strong winds, flames from the large fire climbed 20 meters and spread quickly up the 1,026-meter (3,366-feet) slopes of Mount Hymettos.

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Fire

Huge wildfire on Gran Canaria, Spain sparks mass evacuation


The Local (Spain)
Sun, 11 Aug 2019 12:57 UTC
1,000 people evacuated following wildfires in Gran Canaria

1,000 people evacuated following wildfires in Gran Canaria
Around 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) have so far been destroyed in the fire, which erupted Saturday in the western municipality of Artenara near the provincial capital of Las Palmas.

Some 1,000 residents evacuated overnight have not yet been allowed to return to their homes, emergency services said in a statement on Sunday.

Police said they had detained a man for allegedly starting the fire by using welding equipment.

Fire fighters battling the flames seemed to have the upper hand by Saturday evening but a change in wind direction worsened the situation overnight, Canary Islands president Angel Victor Torres told Spanish radio COPE on Sunday.

More than 200 fire fighters, including an emergency military unit deployed only for worst-case scenarios, were trying to bring the situation under control, he added.

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Fire

Wildfires have burned through 2.5 million hectares of forest in Siberia


RT
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 16:36 UTC
Siberian wildfire
© Russian Aerial Forest Protection Service
Over 2.5 million hectares of forest are on fire throughout several Siberian regions. The fires caused massive smoke buildup across Siberia, while over 400 thousand people signed a petition calling for the declaration of emergency.

Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations vowed to deploy additional forces and hardware to Siberia to fight the massive fires on Monday. "An emergency situation has been declared across the whole Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, as well as certain parts of Buryatia," the ministry said.

To curb the blazes, these three regions need at least 15 thousand personnel on the ground, Deputy Emergencies Minister Evgeny Zinichev said. The official criticized the statements of local officials who argued against fighting the fires despite the large areas affected and the massive smoke buildup in at least 500 Siberian cities and villages.


Comment: US media is getting its digs in at Russia, accusing its officials of being 'too cheap to fight wildfires'.

Reality-check: The vast majority of wildfires in the US simply burn out. Firefighters don't 'stop' them - for the most part they help people evacuate, then help them pick through the ruins.

Also, the US can't afford to 'fight wildfires'. The funds it throws at doing so are all from loans, i.e. the neverending national debt, which is effectively funded by everyone else on Earth.

So the Russians are essentially correct; there is nothing government can do to stop what is happening. In cases where settlements are threatened, they can assist evacs. That's about it.

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Blue Planet

Over 100 wildfires burning across Arctic region have generated smoke plumes visible from space


RT
Fri, 26 Jul 2019 20:14 UTC
arctic wildfires
© NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens
An unprecedented number of wildfires have been ravaging the Arctic for weeks following the hottest June ever recorded on Earth. Now, the fires are so huge and intense, the smoke can literally be seen from space.

Satellite images show more than 100 long-lived wildfires with huge plumes of swirling black smoke covering most of the Arctic Circle including parts of Russia, Siberia, Greenland and Alaska.

The wildfires have now reached "unprecedented levels," according to Mark Parrington of the EU's Copernicus Emergency Management Service, who said the smoke vortex is covering a "mind boggling" two million square kilometers.


Wildfires are burning across 11 regions in Russia with the largest covering Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia. Likely caused by lightning strikes, as of July 22 they have burned 320 square miles (829 square kilometers), 150 square miles (388 square km) and 41 square miles (106 square km) in the regions, respectively, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

Comment: It's not that warm in the Arctic.

No, the significant factor behind them is likely to be the 'accelerant' provided by increased outgassings of methane and CO2, in part due to increased seismic activity. Lightning, which is also on the rise, provides the spark. Then the fires themselves produce lots more CO2.

Like, vastly more than humans can produce.

The smoke and other particulates the fires produce are joined by increased dust from increased meteors and increased volcanic eruptions, which all then jointly contribute to the increased dust-load in the atmosphere, which changes its electric charge rebalancing mechanisms, producing more intense storms and precipitation in the form of record rainfall, hail, lightning strikes, etc.

Notice that man-made activity is nowhere to be seen in this naturally intensifying feedback loop...

We're just along for the ride.

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Fire

Satellite images show vast swathes of Arctic on fire - 850,000 hectares burning in Siberia

Brian Kahn
Gizmodo
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 15:34 UTC
wildfire arctic
© Pierre Markuse
Vast stretches of Earth's northern latitudes are on fire right now. Hot weather has engulfed a huge portion of the Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland to Siberia. That's helped create conditions ripe for wildfires, including some truly massive ones burning in remote parts of the region that are being seen by satellites.

Pierre Markuse, a satellite imagery processing guru, has documented some of the blazes attacking the forests and peatlands of the Arctic. The imagery reveals the delicate landscapes with braided rivers, towering mountains, and vast swaths of forest, all under a thick blanket of smoke.

In Alaska, those images show some of the damage wrought by wildfires that have burned more than 1.6 million acres of land this year. Huge fires have sent smoke streaming cities earlier this month, riding on the back of Anchorage's first 90 degree day ever recorded. The image below show some of the more remote fires in Alaska as well as the Swan Lake Fire, which was responsible for the smoke swallowing Anchorage in late June and earlier this month.

Comment: RT reports on the current situation in Siberia:
Almost 44,000 people have signed a petition calling for authorities to declare an emergency in the Siberian Federal District due to wildfires in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, RIA Novosti reported.

As of Wednesday morning, wildfires had covered almost 846,000 hectares in the north of the Krasnoyarsk territory, with officials saying that there was no immediate threat to cities and villages.

However, local residents say that pollution from wildfires in Krasnoyarsk has spread with air flows to other regions, covering many areas with a thick haze and burning smell.

Large swathes of the Arctic, including in Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland are also on fire. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Denmark's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said that it was fair to say that July's "Arctic Circle wildfires are now at unprecedented levels."
If there was any merit to global warming due to carbon emissions then the rise in volcanic activity would be much more of a concern. However, by all measures, our planet, overall, is cooling - with cold records being broken all the time, and in both hemispheres. And so these wildfires, heatwaves and droughts are simply one aspect of the extreme fluctuations that occur as our planet continues on into an unsettled period where lower temperatures will soon dominate.

See also: For more on what's occurring on our planet, check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

SOTT is also tracking these shifts in a monthly documentary: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - June 2019: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs



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Fire

Massive wildfires hit Portugal


Euronews
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 14:47 UTC
Nine injured as 1,000 firefighters battle wildfires in Portugal

Nine injured as 1,000 firefighters battle wildfires in Portugal
A massive fire stretching 25 km has been raging through the night between the central Portuguese boroughs of Vila de Rei and Mação.

At least eight people have been injured, one seriously, a civilian apparently suffering 1st and 2nd-degree burns. The civilian has been airlifted to hospital in Lisbon.

Today, Sunday, the situation was still "far from under control", said early reports.

Strong winds have been fanning flames, increasing difficulties.

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Fire

Wildfires force evacuation of hundreds of homes in Israel

Tamar Beeri
The Jerusalem Post
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 22:13 UTC
Fire fighters try to extinguish a forest fire near Moshv Aderet, Israel
© Flash90/Noam Revkin Fenton
Fire fighters try to extinguish a forest fire near Moshv Aderet, July 17, 2019.
Extreme heat caused fires to rage across Israel on Wednesday, as police evacuated residents throughout the country from hundreds of homes, 15 of which caught fire.

A fire broke out mid afternoon in a parking lot in Jerusalem's Malha neighborhood, setting 10 cars aflame. Within 45 minutes, the Fire and Rescue Services brought the blaze under control, preventing it from spreading to nearby vegetation and buildings.

The Aderet and Roglit settlements close to Jerusalem, and the Shavei Shomron settlement in the West Bank, were evacuated due to fires that reached houses there. Flames were eventually subdued in all three locations.

Five houses caught on fire at the Ramat Pinkas neighborhood in Or Yehuda close to Tel Aviv. Police attempted to evacuate residents while firefighters gained control of the flames. Several residents were rescued and treated for wounds at the scene.

The first massive fire broke out in the Nesher neighborhood of Haifa near the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, forcing police to temporarily close Route 2, as the school's security forces sent an evacuation notice to students on campus. Two men suffered light injuries due to inhaling smoke and were treated by MDA personnel on the scene.

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Fire

Hawaii wildfire forces thousands to evacuate Maui towns


The Guardian
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 09:42 UTC
Smoke from the fire closes Kuihelani highway in central Maui
© Matthew Thayer/AP
Smoke from the fire closes Kuihelani highway in central Maui.

Brush fire of 1,200 hectares burns out of control through island's central valley

Thousands of people on Maui have been ordered to evacuate two towns in the path of a spreading wildfire, Hawaiian officials and media said.

The 1,200 hectare (3,000 acre) brush fire in the island's central valley was uncontrolled on Thursday night, Maui's mayor, Mike Victorino, told a news conference. Firefighters were monitoring it overnight but it was too dangerous to battle in the dark, he added.

"We can't fight the fire tonight," he said. "We're not going to send any firefighters into harm's way."

A National Weather Service satellite photo showing smoke hanging over the island was posted online.

The brush fire was reported at about 10.30am and steady winds of up to 20mph fanned the flames, officials said. It jumped a highway and spread across fallow fields and more brush. Two fire department helicopters dropped water on the blaze to try to contain it.

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