Posts tagged wildfires.

Firefighting capacity for wildfires curbed by Obama's funding cuts ›

The sequester (a budget deal Obama made with republicans last year) cut more than $115 million from the federal wildland fire program budget, USDA officials have said, at a time when the nation continues to face abnormally dry conditions, particularly in the West, as a result of climate change.

During one of the worst wildfire seasons on record amid a historic drought, the USDA Forest Service ran out of money last year to pay firefighters, operate trucks and fly aircraft. The agency borrowed money from fire management budgets, which help prevent fires, to pay for suppression.

Given the cuts in the Forest Service’s fire budget because of sequestration, and the outlook for significant fire potential in much of the West, that process could play out again, a USDA spokesman said.

“If the U.S. Forest Service exhausts funding . . . for fire suppression in 2013, as it did in 2012, it will be necessary for the agency to transfer funds from other programs to cover fire suppression costs,” said the spokesman, Larry Chambers.

#obama  #politics  #wildfires  #drought  #usda  #government  #climate change  #first responders  #firefighters  #sequester  #gop  
∞  05/14/13 at 10:51pm
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Scary video of rapidly spreading wildfire near LA from someone’s backyard. You can here father and daughter talking about animals running from the flames.

Tough year ahead guys.

#wildfires  #drought  #los angeles  #california  #video  #fire  #climate change  
∞  05/03/13 at 07:03pm
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nbcnightlynews: Southern California wildfire spreads to Naval Base Ventura County Photo: NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin Seriously, it’s going to be a real rough year! HIGH RES

nbcnightlynews:

Southern California wildfire spreads to Naval Base Ventura County

Photo: NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin

Seriously, it’s going to be a real rough year!

#wildfires  #drought  #news  #fire  #california  #navy  #disasters  #environment  #climate change  #adaptation  
∞  05/03/13 at 11:36am via nbcnightlynews
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Dry winter, warming trend foretell wildfire danger ›

Wildfires have begun several months early this year due to drought (and mismanagement) in Idaho, California, Colorado, and Minnesota. There may be others, but that is all I could find in a short time frame.

An agency that watches for wildfire conditions (see below) predicts 2013 will be a killer season. On a personal level, news about wildfires and floods hit me hardest. It’s when good people come together to help their neighbors in such visual, visceral, and gut striking way.

First responders, like firemen, who are usually unpaid volunteers, put their lives on the line for us. They are great people. These types of disasters are at once heartening, because they impact regular people so hard, and frustrating, because our government is partially responsible for mismanaging land and not providing adequate equipment. I fear that 2013 will be the year of tears - let’s hope that I’m wrong.  

BOISE, Idaho—Two small but unseasonably early fires burning in northern California’s wine country and another wind-whipped blaze farther south likely are a harbinger of a nasty summer fire season across the West.

Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise said Wednesday in their first 2013 summer fire outlook that a dry winter and expected warming trend mean the potential for significant fire activity will be above normal on the West Coast, in the Southwest and portions of Idaho and Montana.

“We’re looking at a combination of a low-moisture winter and a warming and drying pattern in the West that will increase the fire potential,” said Ed Delgado, predictive services manager.

If that sounds familiar to the region’s residents, it should.

In 2012, record-setting fires raged in New Mexico and Oregon, while destructive Colorado blazes torched hundreds of homes amid one of the state’s worst seasons in years.

Just like last year, Colorado experienced some of its first 2013 wildfires in March.

Outside the West, however, much of the U.S. is expected to experience normal fire conditions, with below-normal danger in the South where significant, long-duration rains saturated the landscape since Jan. 1, Delgado said.

In California, wine-producing counties Napa and Sonoma experienced early-season blazes Wednesday, as warm temperatures, low humidity and gusting winds through already-dry foothills areas east and north of

San Francisco led to warnings of extreme wildfire conditions.

Both were more than half-contained, according to crews.

And a fast-moving fire east of Los Angeles grew Wednesday afternoon to at least 1,500 acres near Banning in the San Bernardino Mountains, where winds from the east were blowing at nearly 30 mph. Some evacuations were ordered.

Evacuations were ordered for residences on two streets but the number of people was not immediately known. A KCAL-TV helicopter showed at least one structure engulfed by flames.

#drought  #year of tears  #2013  #wildfires  #disasters  #first responders  #firemen  #floods  #land use  #government  #west  #idaho  #california  #climate change  #minnesota  #new mexico  #colorado  
∞  05/02/13 at 11:41am
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Current wildfire and wind condition map. Includes crowdsourced pictures and videos from flickr and youtube. Good link to book mark. HIGH RES

Current wildfire and wind condition map. Includes crowdsourced pictures and videos from flickr and youtube.

Good link to book mark.

#wildfires  #maps  #esri  #gis  #drought  #disasters  
∞  05/02/13 at 11:31am
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Wildfire yesterday in Saint Cloud, MN near I-94. Usually these start mid to late summer, but the drought has evaporated most of the moisture held in the soils.

It’s going to be a gnarly year.

#sequestration  #wildfires  #video  #minnesota  #first responders  #disasters  #fire  #drought  #health  
∞  05/02/13 at 11:23am
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colchrishadfield: Enormous grassland fires in Siberia/Mongolia this morning. HIGH RES

colchrishadfield:

Enormous grassland fires in Siberia/Mongolia this morning.

#Siberia  #Mongolia  #space  #chris hadfield  #russia  #china  #landscape  #photography  #iss  #wildfires  #fire  #land use  #mountains  
∞  05/01/13 at 05:56pm via colchrishadfield
792 notes

5 Butterfly Species Just Vanished While No One Was Looking ›

An entomologist looked for six years and concluded that five rare Florida butterflies are now extinct.

#extinction  #witness  #land use  #pollution  #florida  #insects  #bugs  #pesticides  #wildfires  #ESA  #butterflies  
∞  04/30/13 at 06:30pm
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thelandofmaps: U.S. Drought Monitor - April 2013 Brutal wildfire year lies ahead for the west and south west. HIGH RES

thelandofmaps:

U.S. Drought Monitor - April 2013

Brutal wildfire year lies ahead for the west and south west.

#wildfires  #forests  #drought  #bark beetles  #land use  #emergency response  #disasters  #maps  #usda  #agriculture  #food  #farms  #rivers  #texas  #new mexico  #arizona  #colorado  
∞  04/17/13 at 10:21pm via thelandofmaps
108 notes

Now, we are facing another rise in sea level of 1 to 4 feet. A rise of just 16 inches would be enough to endanger roads, highways and airports in San Francisco and Oakland. It could contaminate crucial groundwater in Los Angeles. Heat is already the leading cause of weather-related deaths, and the expected temperature increase will mean longer and hotter heat waves, like the one that killed 164 Californians during a blistering week in 2006.

That’s the bad news contained in the National Climate Assessment. The good news is we can do something to prevent these dire outcomes.

The report should be a wake-up call for leaders in Washington to overcome gridlock and start working on solutions. For models of how to proceed, they need only look to California and other states and cities that have begun to move forward in a bipartisan way.

The first step for policymakers — and for ordinary citizens too — is to understand the situation we face, which means carefully reading the National Climate Assessment. It may not be as gripping to look at or have the provocative appeal of a raging wildfire or another act of God, but the knowledge in this report is crucial to understanding how to change, to adapt, to prevent and to prepare for future disasters.

It’s our duty to pay attention.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s LATimes Op-Ed on the Obama administration’s forthcoming report on climate change called the National Climate Assessment (NCA).

If you can believe it way back in 1990(!), President George HW Bush signed America’s first climate change law called the Global Change Research Act. The act ordered the Federal Government to study the impacts and issues of climate change in America.

There are several elements of the act, but most important is that every four years, the government is supposed to issue a climate change report called the National Climate Assessment. You can read previous NCA reports, here.

The next NCA is due to be published within the next few months.

#Arnold Schwarzenegger  #california  #national climate assessment  #usgcrp  #ceq  #science  #climate change  #adaptation  #agriculture  #fire  #wildfires  
∞  04/16/13 at 10:42am
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The Dark Snow Project is about 50% funded. Scientists believe that increased droughts are causing more wildfires. These fires emit soot and ash into the air, called ‘black carbon.’ This black carbon circulates through the atmosphere and is deposited (in part) on glaciers and sea ice.

Scientists are finding that the black carbon absorbs heat from the sun, in turn causing the ice to melt faster than expected. The effect of melting ice is faster sea level rise, which will impact (in the least) coastal cities around the world.

The unique part of this project is that it is mostly funded by citizens like you. Really good project and highly recommend visiting their website, darksnowproject.org.

skeptv:

Dark Snow Project: Climate Change and Citizen Science in Greenland

For the dark snow project to succeed, your help is needed.

Please visit darksnowproject.org and consider a tax deductible donation to this unique citizen science initiative, and helping expand the boundaries of knowledge in this critical area of climate science

by Peter Sinclair.

#climate change  #science  #black carbon  #snow  #dark snow project  #hydrology  #sea level rise  #arctic  #video  #soot  #glaciers  #drought  #wildfires  #greenland  #skeptv  #agu  
∞  02/24/13 at 06:41pm via youtube.com
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Wildfires in Tasmania claimed dozens of homes, 100 people are missing. More pics and video at RT.

#tazmania  #australia  #wildfires  #climate change  #drought  #weather  #fire  
∞  01/08/13 at 06:12pm via rt.com
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nationalpost:

Threat level raised to ‘catastrophic’ as wildfires scorch 124,000 acres in Australia
Firefighters battled scores of wildfires Tuesday in southeastern Australia as authorities evacuated national parks and warned that hot, dry and windy conditions were combining to raise the threat to its highest alert level. Temperatures soared to 45 degrees Celsius in some areas.

No deaths have been reported, although officials in Tasmania were still trying to find about 100 people who have been missing since last week when a fire tore through the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, destroying around 90 homes. On Tuesday, police found no bodies during preliminary checks of the ruined houses. (AP Photos)

#news  #fire  #australia  #wildfires  #heat wave  #summer 2013  #weather  #drought  #climate change  #national post  
∞  01/08/13 at 03:08pm via news.nationalpost.com
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Climate.gov video: September was the 16th straight month(!) of record breaking temperatures.

Get Flash to see this player.

#climate change  #climate.gov  #wildfires  #fire  #drought  
∞  10/09/12 at 02:57pm
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Wildfires in Siberia burning for 3 months.  Via HIGH RES

Wildfires in Siberia burning for 3 months.  Via

#siberia  #russia  #permafrost  #wildfires  #temperature  #climate change  
∞  08/31/12 at 05:23pm
40 notes