Wildfires
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Phoenix

Colorado wildfires 2013: Black Forest fire burns homes, Royal Gorge fire burns hundreds of acres, Big Meadows fire continues

Black Forest fire
© Denver Post
Colorado Springs - At least four major wildfires fueled by hot, gusty weather burned along the front of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado on Tuesday, destroying a handful of large houses and chasing people from hundreds of homes.

Thick smoke plumes visible for miles billowed from fires near Colorado Springs, in southern Colorado, and in Rocky Mountain National Park to the north.

A wildfire in a heavily wooded residential area northeast of Colorado Springs led to the mandatory evacuations of more than 1,000 homes, including some worth more than $1 million, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said.

Video from a helicopter showed several large homes engulfed in flames. About eight homes had burned, Maketa said, but he had no exact number because the fire was moving so quickly across the parched forest.

"Right now the firefighters are more focused on fighting fires, drawing lines. And law enforcement, to be very honest, is scrambling to get people out of there as well as do searches," Maketa said. He said firefighters have shifted from evacuation mode to search-and-rescue mode.

Military officials said a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the Colorado Army National Guard and three helicopters from Fort Carson were helping firefighters. Another National Guard helicopter was on standby for search and rescue.

The area is not far from last summer's devastating Waldo Canyon Fire that destroyed 346 homes and killed two.

Comment: Comment: Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction


Windsock

Extreme weather events and earth changes in May 2013



Fireball

Wildfires roar uncontained in California and New Mexico

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© Reuters / Gene BlevinsFirefighters battle the Powerhouse wildfire at the Angeles National Forest, with the fire now having destroyed several homes near the Lake Hughes area in California June 1, 2013
Some 2,000 homes have been evacuated in Southern California as firefighters struggle to contain tens of thousands of acres of wildfire amid extremely hot, dry and windy weather. Two major blazes in New Mexico have also spiraled out of control.

The Powerhouse Fire, which broke out near a Santa Clarita hydroelectric plant in the Los Angeles County on Thursday, has more than tripled in size overnight. A total of 2,100 personnel are now fighting the fire, with air tankers and helicopters deployed to the scene.

Blackbox

Video: Strange weather phenomena over the last days of May 2013


Comment: See also Video: Strange weather phenomena for the first days of May 2013

We suspect that the Cyprus fireball video midway through the above compilation of strange weather events in the second half of May is faked. Contrary to the original YT uploader's claim, there were no NASA reports of this alleged fireball event. In fact, there were no other reports at all.


Extinguisher

Southern California fire burns 1,000 acres; thousands flee

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© Valerie Walston, Santa Barbara County Search And RescueThis photo released by the Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue taken on Monday May 27,2013 showing smoke from a wildfire burning long the mountains north of Santa Barbara, Calif.
Crews in Southern California struggled to get the upper hand on a fast-moving wildfire in Santa Barbara County early Tuesday.

Known as the White Fire, the blaze had already charred some 1,000 acres after getting its start Monday afternoon, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Andrew Madsen said. The flames were 5% contained.

The Forest Service expects to have 700 personnel in place Tuesday morning.

Cloud Precipitation

Video: Strange weather phenomena for the first days of May 2013


Phoenix

Firefighters put out 15 wildfires in Russian far East

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© RIA Novosti/ Yaakov AndreevForest fire. Archive.
Firefighters have extinguished 15 out of 25 forest fires in the Russian Far East over the past 24 hours, the regional forestry department reported Saturday.

"Out of 25 forest fires, 15 have been put out, seven are active in the Republic of Sakha [Yakutia], with one of them contained, and three others have been contained in the Khabarovsk Territory," the department said in a statement.

Over the past day, fire covered some 936 hectares in the region. As of Friday morning, the figure was nearly 13,000 hectares.

Heart - Black

California farm workers fired for seeking shelter from wildfire

fruit pickers
© AFP Photo / Joe Klamar
A group of farm laborers who chose to seek shelter from the suffocating smoke of a California wildfire last week were terminated for taking a break.

At least 15 workers at Crisalida Farms in Oxnard, California, found themselves struggling to breathe last week as the Camarillo Springs wildfire blackened the sky with smoke and ash. The blaze damaged more than a dozen houses, threatened 4,000 homes, and burned a store of highly toxic pesticides that caught fire at an agricultural property.

Located just 11 miles south of the fire, workers at the Southern California strawberry farm had a difficult time breathing as they laboriously worked in the fields. Their boss had warned them that taking a break would compromise their jobs, and they were faced with a dilemma.

"The ashes were falling on top of us," one of the workers told NBC LA. "[But] they told us if we leave, there would be no job to return to."

Attention

Severe weather slams the USA: Snow, floods and wildfires

wildfire
© AFPHundreds of residents have been forced to leave their homes as strong winds fan the flames of the wildfires
The country endures the extremes of weather from record breaking snowfall to raging wildfires.

The start of May has been a strange one for the USA. It seems that nature can't decide if it's winter or summer.

Heavy rain has flooded parts of Key West in southern Florida. Two days of torrential downpours have led to flooding and in the last 24 hours, 109mm more rain fell across the island.

The rain has flooded homes and businesses and forced the closure of a number of roads.

Whilst rain is the problem in Florida, elsewhere winter is still winning. Heavy snow has smothered parts of the Plains and the Midwest.

Some of the worst weather was in the state of Minnesota, where the snow set new records.

Bizarro Earth

California blaze makes its way to ocean

California Fire
© Screenshot, WorldConflictReport @YouTubeThe screenshot shows the so-called Springs fire burning in Ventura County.
A massive fire in Ventura County, Calif., that started early Thursday (May 2) has gobbled up thousands of acres of brush and is headed toward the ocean near Malibu.

The blaze erupted at about 6:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EDT) Thursday off the Southbound 101 freeway, threatening hundreds of homes in Newbury Park and Camarillo, the LA Times reported. The flames had consumed 10,000 acres of brush and was 10 percent contained as of early Friday morning, NBC News reported, and had reached within "seven or eight miles" of the city of Malibu.

The so-called Springs fire caused the shutdown of a 9-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway and the evacuation of hundreds of Ventura County residents as it crept toward the coast.

Very low humidity and balmy spring temperatures, combined with the dry brush and the blustering Santa Ana winds, created the perfect conditions for the wildfire, which is unusual for this time of year.