Page 3 - Forest Fires

Here's how climate change is fueling wildfires in the US and Canada

The fires sending smoke across North America are part of a global trend toward more frequent and more destructive blazes, says Thomas Smith of the London School of Economics

Canada forest fires intensify, worsen air quality in Canada, United States

Air quality in the US and Canada intensifies as 400 forest fires remain active. The US deploys 600 firefighters to control the situation.

Forest dept has prepared mapping system to control forest fires: HP CM

The Himachal Pradesh forests department has prepared a mapping system to control forest fires, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Tuesday. He said maps have been prepared for sensitive forests, and places in these forests that are prone to fires have been marked and linked to areas from where the fires can be controlled. "Though it is not possible to control them entirely, the key is to stay alert," Sukhu said, adding that the department has also constituted a Rapid Fire Action Team. Wildfires are a natural occurrence but they have become more extreme and widespread in recent years and mass contact programmes can be a key achiever in controlling these fires to a large extent, the chief minister said in a statement here.

Wildfires in Australia likely contributed to unusual La Nina event

Researchers have found that the catastrophic Australian wildfires in 2019-2020 contributed to ocean cooling thousands of miles away, ultimately nudging the Tropical Pacific into a rare multi-year La Nina event that dissipated only recently. The research, led by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), US, is published in the journal Science Advances. Because the emergence of La Nina can often be predicted months in advance, it's an important phenomenon for seasonal climate forecasts. "Many people quickly forgot about the Australian fires, especially as the COVID pandemic exploded, but the Earth system has a long memory, and the impacts of the fires lingered for years," said NCAR scientist John Fasullo, lead author of the study. While not uncommon, a La Nina occurrence for three consecutive winters is rare. The recent run of La Ninas, beginning in the winter of 2020-21 and continuing through last winter, is only the third string of three in the historical record, which dates

Women in green put out forest fires in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district

Bilaspur is the first forest division in the state to take up the initiative

Hundreds of firefighters battle France's 1st major forest fire of 2023

Hundreds of firefighters are steadily wrestling under control France's first major forest fire of the year, which has ripped through swaths of woods and scrub straddling the country's southern border with Spain. Rescue services spokesman Arnaud Wilm told broadcaster FranceInfo on Monday morning that the blaze is being successfully contained and that its biggest flames have been extinguished but fire crews have yet to completely stop its spread and put it out. He said more than 500 firefighters remain on hand. The blaze erupted Sunday and burned on hundreds of hectares (acres) of land between Banyuls-sur-Mer and Cerbre on the Mediterranean coast, and spread across the border into Spain.

IAF dispenses over 25,000 ltrs of water to contain Goa forest fire

According to information, 48 fire spots have been detected since March 5 till Saturday. Of which, 41 fires have already been doused, while seven are reported to be active

Goa: Navy, IAF choppers deployed to fight Mhadei fires; 28 doused, 3 active

The fires that have broken out in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa are being kept under control through the joint efforts of the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and the forest department, state minister Vishwajit Rane said on Thursday. The Indian Navy has deployed helicopters, with 'Large Area Aerial Liquid Dispersion Equipment' mounted on them, to carry out sorties since Tuesday to douse the fires, a defence spokesperson said. The sanctuary, located in the north-eastern part of the state along the border with Karnataka, has been witnessing fires at multiple sites for the past six days. "An IAF helicopter has conducted reconnaissance of the sanctuary while the Indian Navy has deployed four helicopters. The fire has been kept under control and we are monitoring the situation on an hourly basis," Rane said. He said forest department officials are inside the sanctuary as part of the dousing operations, and, as on Thursday, there are three minor fires active in the area. "A total of 28

Human activity degraded more than a third of remaining Amazon forest: Study

The Amazon rainforest has been degraded by a much greater extent than scientists previously believed with more than a third of remaining forest affected by humans, according to a new study. The study shows that up to 38 per cent of the remaining Amazon forest area - equivalent to ten times the size of the UK - has been affected by some form of human disturbance, causing carbon emissions equivalent to or greater than those from deforestation. The paper was led by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions such as Brazil's University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and UK's Lancaster University, it said. The work is the result of the AIMES (Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System) project, linked to the Future Earth international initiative, which brings together scientists and researchers who study sustainability, the study said. The findings, ...

How Burning trees in Brazil's Amazon melts snow in the Himalayas

Scientists are only beginning to investigate the connections between far-flung components of the planet's climate system

Congress state prez alleges BJP govt 'failed' to protect wildlife in Goa

Chodankar said that such incidents never happened during the Congress regime

8 forest fires rage in Chile, 25 others contained; over 4,400 ha destroyed

A forest fire in the central Santiago Metropolitan Region left one person dead and five injured, and destroyed 46 homes and 659 hectares

Forest fires destroyed 13,000 hectares of land in Chile this year: Minister

Up to 1,587 forest fires have razed more than 13,000 hectares of land in Chile this year, Agriculture Minister Esteban Valenzuela said

Extreme weather, wildfires, floods jeopardise health care services: Report

Dr. Suzy Fitzgerald remembers looking out the windows as wildfire flames surrounded the hospital where she worked. We had fire in all three directions, Fitzgerald recalled. I thought, Oh gosh, this is serious. We need to get these people out.' Fitzgerald helped with the evacuation of 122 patients from Kaiser Permanente's Santa Rosa Medical Center on that night nearly five years ago, as the blaze gobbled up homes and buildings across Northern California. The hospital, which had filled with smoke, closed for 17 days. Medical centers around the country say that fires, flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather are jeopardizing medical services, damaging health care facilities and forcing patients to flee their hospital beds, according to a report released Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee. At a hearing, Dr. Parinda Khatri, the CEO of Cherokee Health Systems, told the committee that a pediatric clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, was forced to close for 10 days this summer

3,700 hectares of land burnt as wildfires continue in France's Gironde

Wildfires continue in France's southwestern department of Gironde, with more than 3,700 hectare of land burnt since Monday, the Prefecture of Gironde announced in a statement

Wildfire scorches tens of thousands of acres in Kazakhstan; 2,000 displaced

A huge forest fire has burned tens of thousands of acres in northern Kazakhstan, displacing almost 2,000 people, the head of the crisis management office said Saturday.The wildfire broke out in the Kostanay Province on Friday and spread quickly over a large swath of land, scorching 9,400 hectares (23,230 acres) by Saturday night, Aybol Akbarov told reporters.Four villages have been evacuated and the entire region placed on the extreme emergency level. Hundreds of firefighters and more than 50 fire engines are battling the blaze.Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will go to the region on Monday to inspect the operational headquarters, his press office said. Tokayev has told the government to unlock emergency funds needed to deal with the crisis.

Forest fires in Russia burn over 100,000 hectares of land in 3 days: Report

Smoke from forest fires has recently reached the capital Moscow, limiting visibility in the city

Russian city declares emergency as smoke from forest fires blankets Moscow

A state of emergency was declared in the Russian region of Ryazan, nearly 200 kilometres south-east of Moscow, due to widespread forest fires

Drought, heatwaves trigger bushfires in China's Chongqing, no casualties

More than 1,500 people have been evacuated to safe places

EU experiencing worst forest fires since 2006, says European Commission

France has already lost twice the area to forest fires this year than in 2021, Spain more than three times