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Sigmetnow

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Wildfires
« on: August 21, 2015, 01:28:27 PM »
Western Wildfires: Experts from Australia Will Help U.S. Firefighters
Quote
More than 70 firefighting experts from Australia and New Zealand will travel to the United States to help tackle deadly wildfires across the West as local officials warned they could not keep up with the spread of the flames.
...
"We cannot keep up. We do not have the resources. It's nonstop," Okanogan County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Dave Rodriguez said. "It's all burning, and we don't have the resources available. We cannot get out and put boots on the ground for all these fires."

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/western-wildfires-experts-australia-will-help-u-s-firefighters-n413582
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2015, 09:00:38 PM »
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@R5_Fire_News: **Corrected** California wildfire activity for August 21 (am) @forestservice @Cal_Fire @Cal_OES @Interior http://t.co/1igq2qGKU0
https://twitter.com/r5_fire_news/status/634772218828955648
 
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@ShastaTrinityNF: Thursday Evening Summary Report on fires burning in the @ShastaTrinityNF & @SixRiversNF. Steady progress continues. http://t.co/5Cxz8thXJO
https://twitter.com/shastatrinitynf/status/634579993889107972
 
Quote
Statement from Secretary Tom Vilsack on Ongoing Devastating Wildfire Season
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2015 - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today made the following statement:

"This year, we are experiencing yet another devastating wildfire season, particularly in the drought-ravaged West. Climate change, drought, fuel buildup, insects and disease are increasing the severity of unprecedented wildfire in America's forests and rangelands, which impacts the safety of people, homes and communities. Development close to forests has also increased the threat to property, with more than 46 million homes in the United States, or about 40 percent of our nation's housing, potentially at risk from wildfire. USDA works closely with the Department of Interior and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, along with other partners, to deploy the workforce, equipment, and interagency coordination necessary to respond safely and effectively to increasingly severe wildfire seasons. We are expending in excess of $150 million per week on fire suppression activities, and that will likely grow in the days and weeks ahead. Well over 26,000 firefighters and support personnel from federal, state and local agencies are deployed, along with 28 next generation and legacy air tankers, and additional aviation assets. We are now working with the U.S. Military and foreign partners, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to bring in additional resources.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2015/08/0236.xml
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2015, 04:10:57 PM »
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This fire season has been the worst in [Washington] state’s recorded history....
This may be the first article I've seen with complaints that firefighters did nothing to protect his home.  Resources are stretched so thin, they cannot be everywhere they are needed.  For one woman, this was her third evacuation in five years....

Calmer weather gives wildfire crews a break
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/saturday-fire-update/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2015, 05:45:58 PM »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2015, 02:54:19 AM »
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Dozens of large wildfires are burning out of control around Lake Baikal in Siberia, which is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume and the deepest lake, at more than 5,300 feet deep.

Because of the composition of the soil in this part of the world, these fires are spewing unusually high amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global warming.
http://mashable.com/2015/08/24/massive-fires-are-surrounding-the-worlds-deepest-lake-in-siberia/
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jdallen

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2015, 02:57:42 AM »
From the arctic wildfire thread.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1232.msg61695.html#msg61695

Locally, in Seattle over the weekend, the air quality was rated hazardous due to smoke blowing in from the Okanagan fires.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2015, 04:00:41 AM »
Okanogan Complex: Washington State Wildfire Is Now Largest in State History, may burn until November
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/okanogan-complex-washington-wildfire-now-largest-state-history-n414916
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solartim27

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2015, 06:40:46 AM »
I don't think I've seen smoke this thick before.  Much thicker than the Washington fires.
FNORD

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2015, 06:05:50 PM »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #9 on: August 26, 2015, 03:22:29 AM »
Quote
@AirlineFlyer: It's crazy how many temporary flight restrictions are in place (red circles) because of fires in the Northwest [U.S.]. http://t.co/vyZNQWxk8k

https://twitter.com/airlineflyer/status/636276510526205953
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2015, 06:30:36 PM »
There Aren’t Enough Firefighters to Stop America’s West From Burning
An unprecedented 32,000 men and women are fighting blazes in what could be the most destructive fire season in history
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In the Lower 48, fire season began in earnest the last week of July, when thunderstorms sent almost 2,300 lightning strikes into the drought-parched forests and foothills of Northern California. Two days later, smoke was rising from 250 new wildfires, Governor Jerry Brown called a state of emergency, and almost 10,000 firefighters from at least a dozen different fire agencies poured into Northern California.
...
Accounting for insurance costs, damages to businesses and infrastructure, and the flash floods and mudslides caused by denuded slopes, this year’s fires will likely cost taxpayers $25 billion—and that’s if a whole town or city doesn’t burn, which is a distinct possibility. If that happens, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the costs could double or triple: One hundred forty million Americans live in fire-prone regions, and $237 billion in property sits in those high-risk areas.
...
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got,” says Tom Harbour, who, as the chief of the Forest Service’s fire department, sets the agenda for dozens of other federal, state, county, and municipal agencies and is effectively America’s wildland fire chief. “One hundred million people in the West can no longer expect to just pick up the phone, dial 911, and have a Hotshot come and save them.”
...
In 1995, the Forest Service spent 16 percent of its budget fighting fires. Today, it’s 52 percent and rising. The agency’s $5 billion budget hasn’t grown, just the portion of it spent on fire management, which includes timber operations to thin forests. “You’re no longer the Forest Service,” his boss, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, has told him. “You’re a fire department.”
...
Hotter temperatures make dense forests drier, and the fires more extreme. In California, a 1-degree temperature increase is associated with 35 percent more acres burned; in Montana, it’s twice the acreage. The conditions generate megafires, blazes far too intense for firefighters to safely stop. Arizona’s 2011 Wallow Fire was a megafire, and so were California’s 2013 Rim Fire, which burned 250,000 acres, and New Mexico’s 2011 Las Conchas. That biblical firestorm blackened 1.4 acres of mature forests every second for 14 hours straight.

Current fire policy, adopted in 2000, is actually sound, Harbour says. It allows incident commanders to make nuanced decisions about which fires, or even sections of fires, to fight and which fires to let burn; it encourages prescribed burning; and it allocates millions of dollars to thin dangerously dense forests around communities. But the policy is hard to practice, which is why, on the ground, it still looks like 1910 out there.

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-wildfires-in-the-american-west/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2015, 06:20:56 PM »
Wildfires have now burned a massive 8 million acres across the U.S.
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As of this writing, the United States remains at wildfire preparedness level 5 — the highest level — where it has been since Aug. 13.

There are only six other years that have seen more than 8 million acres burned — 2012, 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004 — based on National Interagency Fire Center records that date back to 1960. It is hard not to notice that all of these years came since the year 2000.
...
Considerably more acres are likely to burn this year, Jones noted, for several reasons. One is that many of the current large fires are at low containment levels. “A lot of those aren’t even at 50 percent containment, and some of those aren’t even estimating containment until the middle of October, and there’s a couple on here into November,” Jones noted.

There’s also the simple fact that there are four months left in 2015, and Southern California’s wildfire season can be at its worst in the fall, thanks to the notorious Santa Ana Winds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/01/wildfires-have-now-burned-a-massive-8-million-acres-across-the-u-s-this-year/
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Paddy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2015, 06:41:02 PM »
Wildfires have now burned a massive 8 million acres across the U.S.

Plus over 11 million acres (4.5 million hectares) burned in Canada this year so far.  And a busy year for wildfires in Russia, too, although I can't find an estimate on the total there.  I wouldn't be surprised if this year set a new northern hemisphere record.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2015, 03:37:17 AM »
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@UniformStories: A Washington #Firefighter’s picture. Accurately describes the Pacific Northwest. (via hannahvstheworld/tumblr) http://t.co/ReC2iJd3ip

https://twitter.com/uniformstories/status/640951424885526533
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #14 on: September 08, 2015, 09:31:29 PM »
The U.S. Forest Service is spending over half its budget fighting fires.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2015, 03:44:36 PM »
When the name of your town is San Andreas, wildfire risk is not the first thing that comes to mind.

California Town of 2,700 Warned Ahead of Explosive Wildfire
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/california-wildfire-grows-more-50-000-acres-amid-heat-drought-n426121
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2015, 04:30:34 PM »
California Wildfires: Thousands Flee as Valley and Butte Blazes Force Evacuations
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Firefighters in northern California were battling a fast-moving wildfire early Sunday that had razed buildings, forced thousands to flee, and hospitalized four firefighters with second-degree burns.

The so-called Valley Fire in Lake County, northwest of Sacramento, erupted early Saturday afternoon and rapidly chewed through brush and trees parched from several years of drought, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-wildfires-thousand-flee-firefighters-battle-blazes-n426531
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #17 on: September 14, 2015, 02:40:39 AM »
Valley fire spread with 'mind-boggling' speed, experts say
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Experts said the Valley fire moved faster than any other in California’s recent history. In fewer than 12 hours, it had scorched 40,000 acres.

“There aren’t very many fires in California’s history that have done that. I don’t know if there really is a precedent for it,” said Daniel Swain, climate scientist at Stanford University. “This fire sort of broke the rules even relative to this incredible season that’s already occurred.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-wildfire-spread-with-mind-boggling-speed-20150913-story.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #18 on: September 14, 2015, 10:09:56 PM »
California wildfires continue to grow as flames consume small towns
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Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said this summer's fires are the most volatile he has seen in 30 years of emergency response work. The main cause behind the fast-spreading fires is dry conditions from the four-year drought, he said.

"The bushes, the trees have absolutely no moisture in them, and the humidities are so low that we are seeing these 'fire starts' just erupt into conflagrations," Ghilarducci said, according to the Sacramento Bee.

California's central Sierra Nevada mountains are running a precipitation deficit of 71 inches since 2011, with other areas running deficits closer to 40 to 50 inches of precipitation.
http://mashable.com/2015/09/14/valley-butte-california-wildfires/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2015, 03:58:24 AM »
More than 1,000 homes destroyed by 2 California fires. Temperatures returning to 90-100°F.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/43381f0789ba4ce7947c557fe082a689/heat-spurs-fears-deadly-california-wildfires-could-revive
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #20 on: September 21, 2015, 02:48:32 PM »
As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West
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Droughts are certainly not new, nor are large fires or even intense fires, Dr. Swetnam acknowledged. But the greater number of intense and large fires, and the repeated “burns on top of burns” like the ones that cleared the landscape around Cochiti canyon, are part of a pattern of worsening conditions exacerbated by the hotter droughts.

He has studied sections of many trees from the former forest near the canyon, which provided 300 years of fire history before the 2011 Las Conchas blaze, which ultimately burned 150,000 acres. “Obviously, the forest had survived many, many, surface fires,” he said. “But this fire — this fire — killed all of the trees in this area. “
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/as-fires-grow-a-new-landscape-appears-in-the-west.html
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #21 on: September 26, 2015, 04:40:44 PM »
U.S. nears wildfire record with more than 9 million acres burned
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/24/wildfires-acres-burned-9-million/72738140/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #22 on: September 27, 2015, 06:32:57 PM »
In Vicious Fire Season, an Endurance Test for California Crews
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The firefighters collapse in driveways and fields to steal a moment’s rest. They sleep in their engines, sprawled across fire hoses or slumped over steering wheels. After days of hacking dead brush and setting defensive fires across flaming mountains, their 24-hour rest breaks are cut short when a new fire rears up.

In this relentless wildfire season, when fire crews and resources are stretched thin from the foothills of the Rockies to Alaska’s wilderness, the latest enemy confronting firefighters is not flame. It is grinding exhaustion.

“Everybody’s beat,” said Paul Fleckenstein, a battalion chief who spent the past two weeks fighting a wildfire that killed four people and destroyed 1,958 homes and other buildings here in the parched mountains 90 miles north of San Francisco. “There’s nothing left to give.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/28/us/in-vicious-fire-season-an-endurance-test-for-california-crews.html
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2015, 03:52:56 PM »
The linked article indicates that due to its extreme number of wildfires it is asking for foreign assistance for fire fighters; however, with the current El Nino certain to gain strength the situation may become worst for some months to come:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indonesia-asks-for-foreign-help-to-extinguish-forest-fires/2015/10/08/e64d7c50-6dbe-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html

Extract: "Indonesia has already deployed about 25,840 soldiers, police and fire personnel in six provinces to fight the fires, together with 25 aircraft used for water-dropping and cloud-seeding operations.

According to the Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, 1,303 fires are currently burning across the country, mostly on Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi islands."

Edit - See also:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/1008/Why-is-Singapore-covered-in-smoke-and-what-can-be-done-about-it

« Last Edit: October 09, 2015, 12:42:48 AM by AbruptSLR »
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jai mitchell

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #24 on: October 08, 2015, 09:43:25 PM »
In the last El Nino of this magnitude, the fires during the winter of 97-98 provided enough carbon into the atmosphere to equal up to 13-40%% of the mean Anthropogenic CO2 emissions for that year.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6911/full/nature01131.html

Abstract:

Tropical peatlands are one of the largest near-surface reserves of terrestrial organic carbon, and hence their stability has important implications for climate change1, 2, 3. In their natural state, lowland tropical peatlands support a luxuriant growth of peat swamp forest overlying peat deposits up to 20 metres thick4, 5. Persistent environmental change—in particular, drainage and forest clearing—threatens their stability2, and makes them susceptible to fire6. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of widespread fires throughout the forested peatlands of Indonesia7, 8, 9, 10 during the 1997 El Niño event. Here, using satellite images of a 2.5 million hectare study area in Central Kalimantan, Borneo, from before and after the 1997 fires, we calculate that 32% (0.79 Mha) of the area had burned, of which peatland accounted for 91.5% (0.73 Mha). Using ground measurements of the burn depth of peat, we estimate that 0.19–0.23 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon were released to the atmosphere through peat combustion, with a further 0.05 Gt released from burning of the overlying vegetation. Extrapolating these estimates to Indonesia as a whole, we estimate that between 0.81 and 2.57 Gt of carbon were released to the atmosphere in 1997 as a result of burning peat and vegetation in Indonesia. This is equivalent to 13–40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and contributed greatly to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957 (ref. 1).

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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #25 on: October 09, 2015, 12:53:45 PM »
Smoke and fire for the sake of palm oil.

Indonesia urged to declare national disaster as haze worsens
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/08/indonesia-urged-to-hose-down-smoke-and-mirrors-policies/
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jdallen

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2015, 11:06:53 PM »
Smoke and fire for the sake of palm oil.

Indonesia urged to declare national disaster as haze worsens
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/08/indonesia-urged-to-hose-down-smoke-and-mirrors-policies/
It is absolutely heartbreaking, and similarly unnecessary.  The development and exploitation of those forests across Indonesia have given utterly no benefit to the people who live there.  And now, they suffer the consequences of the greed of the people ruining them.

So sad.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #27 on: October 23, 2015, 01:18:13 PM »
Alaskan Forest Fires Could Make Climate Change Much Worse
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What’s happening in Indonesian peatlands and Alaskan boreal forests could be happening all over the world. A study published this summer in Nature Communications concluded that fire weather seasons have, on average, grown 18.7 percent longer since 1979, and that the global burnable area affected by fire season has doubled. Ecosystems that shouldn’t burn at all, such as the temperate rainforests of Washington State and Oregon, are starting to combust. Climate change is setting the world on fire, and that’s creating a huge new source of greenhouse gas emissions—amplifying global warming, in a vicious feedback loop.
http://gizmodo.com/alaskan-forest-fires-could-make-climate-change-much-wor-1737629067
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jai mitchell

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #29 on: October 23, 2015, 05:46:09 PM »
While tropical and boreal peat fires are moving sequestered carbon into the atmosphere and, in the case of boreal peat, may significantly increase the emissions rates from the decomposition of permafrost carbon, the carbon released from forests will be offset somewhat by new growth.

However, the Brazil and Indonesia fires appear to be spurred by agriculture transformations into (oil palm?) cultivated lands which will significantly reduce those regions' new growth in terms of wood mass per hectare going forward.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #30 on: October 27, 2015, 08:24:33 PM »
Indonesia's fires labelled a 'crime against humanity' as 500,000 suffer
Haze has caused havoc, with schools in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia shut down, flights grounded and events cancelled.
Quote
“Large parts of Indonesia have now been in a state of emergency for over a month. Why has there not been a nationally declared total fire ban advertised 24/7 on all television channels?” asked Dr. Eric Meijaard, an Indonesia-based associate professor at the University of Queensland, in a recent editorial in the Jakarta Globe.

“Why has there not been a clear message: you burn — you go to jail?”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/indonesias-fires-crime-against-humanity-hundreds-of-thousands-suffer
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pikaia

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #31 on: October 30, 2015, 10:30:04 AM »
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media

"it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. "

"After the last great conflagration, in 1997, there was a missing cohort in Indonesia of 15,000 children under the age of three, attributed to air pollution. This, it seems, is worse. The surgical masks being distributed across the nation will do almost nothing to protect those living in a sunless smog. Members of parliament in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) have had to wear face masks during debates."

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #32 on: November 07, 2015, 04:43:03 AM »
Climate change fuels Australia bushfire threat
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The bushfire season has started a month early in Australia, with record-breaking heat waves recorded across the continent in October contributing to several large fires destroying properties.
http://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-fuels-australia-bushfire-threat/a-18831755
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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #35 on: December 10, 2015, 08:03:14 PM »
We may be witnessing the worst U.S. wildfire season in recorded history
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Alaska accounts for more than half of this year’s total, with 770 wildfires that so far have torched 5.1 million acres. That’s almost five times the average of typical years there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-a-warming-nation-possibly-the-worst-year-for-acres-burned-by-fire/2015/12/09/80de418c-9dc1-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #36 on: January 07, 2016, 04:13:30 PM »
We may be witnessing the worst U.S. wildfire season in recorded history
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Alaska accounts for more than half of this year’s total, with 770 wildfires that so far have torched 5.1 million acres. That’s almost five times the average of typical years there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-a-warming-nation-possibly-the-worst-year-for-acres-burned-by-fire/2015/12/09/80de418c-9dc1-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html

It is not comforting to think that the impacts of wildfires are not included in AR5 climate models, when they are clearly increasing worldwide, including in the USA as indicated in the linked article:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/06/2015-wildfire-season-just-set-an-amazing-and-troubling-new-record/

Extract: "U.S. wildfires just set an amazing and troubling new record. 
Last year’s wildfire season set a record with more than 10 million acres burned. That’s more land than Maryland, the District and Delaware combined.
More than half the total was the result of mega-fires in Alaska, where dryness due to historically low mountain snowpack and a freak lightning storm created perfect conditions for a huge blaze. The nation’s overall toll was about 4 million acres more than the yearly average, scorching a record set in 2006."
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jdallen

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #37 on: January 11, 2016, 12:42:19 AM »
Site for Australian wildfires currently active.

http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi3/
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jdallen

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #38 on: January 11, 2016, 12:52:04 AM »
More on southern hemisphere wildfires.  Australia and eastern Indonesia.

http://sentinel.ga.gov.au/#/main
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #39 on: January 18, 2016, 06:29:14 PM »
The linked (open access) reference projects a limited increase in wildfires under RCP 4.5, but a more significant increase in wildfires under RCP 8.5, by 2100:

Knorr, W., Jiang, L., and Arneth, A.: Climate, CO2 and human population impacts on global wildfire emissions, Biogeosciences, 13, 267-282, doi:10.5194/bg-13-267-2016, 2016.

http://www.biogeosciences.net/13/267/2016/bg-13-267-2016.html

Abstract. Wildfires are by far the largest contributor to global biomass burning and constitute a large global source of atmospheric traces gases and aerosols. Such emissions have a considerable impact on air quality and constitute a major health hazard. Biomass burning also influences the radiative balance of the atmosphere and is thus not only of societal, but also of significant scientific interest. There is a common perception that climate change will lead to an increase in emissions as hot and dry weather events that promote wildfire will become more common. However, even though a few studies have found that the inclusion of CO2 fertilisation of photosynthesis and changes in human population patterns will tend to somewhat lower predictions of future wildfire emissions, no such study has included full ensemble ranges of both climate predictions and population projections, including the effect of different degrees of urbanisation.
Here, we present a series of 124 simulations with the LPJ–GUESS–SIMFIRE global dynamic vegetation–wildfire model, including a semi-empirical formulation for the prediction of burned area based on fire weather, fuel continuity and human population density. The simulations use Climate Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) climate predictions from eight Earth system models. These were combined with two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and five scenarios of future human population density based on the series of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) to assess the sensitivity of emissions to the effect of climate, CO2 and humans. In addition, two alternative parameterisations of the semi-empirical burned-area model were applied. Contrary to previous work, we find no clear future trend of global wildfire emissions for the moderate emissions and climate change scenario based on the RCP 4.5. Only historical population change introduces a decline by around 15 % since 1900. Future emissions could either increase for low population growth and fast urbanisation, or continue to decline for high population growth and slow urbanisation. Only for high future climate change (RCP8.5), wildfire emissions start to rise again after ca. 2020 but are unlikely to reach the levels of 1900 by the end of the 21st century. We find that climate warming will generally increase the risk of fire, but that this is only one of several equally important factors driving future levels of wildfire emissions, which include population change, CO2 fertilisation causing woody thickening, increased productivity and fuel load and faster litter turnover in a warmer climate.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #40 on: February 18, 2016, 09:28:55 AM »
Wildfires are forecast for tomorrow in the Central USA, due to high temperatures and winds in February.  I note that paleo-data indicates that during recent past interglacial periods such wildfires were common throughout the Central USA:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/us/warm-weather-february/index.html
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Sleepy

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #41 on: February 18, 2016, 11:05:11 AM »
So, you in the US obviously don't want to live near your coastlines in the future, in places like New York or Florida. California will dry out and drown at the same time, and you don't want to live in the mid west due to drought, fires and tornadoes. Hmm.
Scandinavia might be one of the better places to live in the future, weatherwise that is, at least for a while.

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #42 on: February 18, 2016, 07:50:11 PM »
Canada (yah the 51st state north of the U.S. border land of snow and ice) has its good spots. Other then Vancouver which is going to get drowned almost all other heavily populated places are inland and for most places you do not have to dig too far down before you hit rock (Canadian Shield). You should see them dig basements for towers in Toronto.
As for wildfires. Until man can figure out some way to desalinate enough water to water all the land surface, wildfires are going to get worse and worse until everything turns to desert. Why? Man controlling water supplies and evaporation.
Both those problems (from the perspective of general land hydrology) are going to compound everything weather changes will do to the land. End result. Everything will dry up. Case in point. The Sahara. 4,000 years ago it fed empires. Now because the destruction that man was partly responsible for, desert. And to point out that piece of land greatly impacts weather systems in Europe, the development of hurricanes, even what happens in the Amazon.
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #43 on: February 19, 2016, 08:16:27 PM »
Wildfires are forecast for tomorrow in the Central USA, due to high temperatures and winds in February.  I note that paleo-data indicates that during recent past interglacial periods such wildfires were common throughout the Central USA:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/us/warm-weather-february/index.html

Not only did the forecasts of wildfire come true, but our new climate change conditions generated fire tornadoes across thousands of acres in Missouri:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/high-winds-spark-fire-tornadoes-missouri/story?id=37056702

Extract: "High winds caused fires to spread across thousands of acres in Missouri on Thursday, generating whirling fire tornadoes and wreaking havoc on thousands of acres of land.
“In my 39-year career, I have never seen anything like that before,” Dean Cull, Deputy Chief of the Southern Platte Fire Protection District told ABC News today."
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #44 on: April 07, 2016, 01:45:48 AM »
Oklahoma is suffering from a major outbreak of grass fires.
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Fires from Tuesday are still burning across much of our state. Overnight winds shifted from south/southwest to north/northwest changing the direction of the fires.

Fires will continue to spread rapidly, with low humidity and winds gusting 40-45 mph.
http://m.koco.com/weather/fire-danger-still-very-high-wednesday/38889898


UPDATE: Power lines blamed for massive Oklahoma wildfire
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Oklahoma forestry officials say a large wildfire that has burned 86 square miles of range land was caused by power lines.

Oklahoma Forestry Services Director George Geissler says arcing power lines are to blame for the blaze in northwest Oklahoma, located about 170 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

That area of Oklahoma saw wind gusts of 50 mph on Tuesday, which caused the power lines to arc into the dry grass, sparking the fire. Forestry spokeswoman Hannah Anderson says the blaze has not been contained at all, but that no new evacuation orders have been issued.
http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Grassfires-breaking-out-in-Kansas-Oklahoma--374671991.html
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Cate

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #45 on: April 08, 2016, 01:41:12 PM »
Mild winter, lower snowpack, early thaw, and now a forecast for warm dry spring weather: Environment Canada warns that this could be the set-up for another bad wildfire season across the True North. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-fire-season-weather-1.3522382

Sigmetnow

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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #46 on: April 09, 2016, 10:24:51 PM »
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U.S. Forest Service:  Wildfires burn twice as many acres each year than they did 40 years ago. https://twitter.com/forestservice/status/718878782418001920
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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #48 on: April 21, 2016, 07:28:44 AM »
And...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-wildfires-rocky-view-fire-ban-1.3543426

It's going to be just one HELLUVA season, I can tell right now.
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Re: Wildfires
« Reply #49 on: May 03, 2016, 02:10:11 AM »
Wildfire flames whip dangerously close to homes in Alberta
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A state of emergency was declared near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, May 1 as a wildfire engulfed parts of the area. According to reports, hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes. (Facebook/Brandon Serroul)

At least three wildfires are burning around an Alberta, Canada, town, and video shows the flames approaching businesses, homes and cars — way too close for comfort.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/05/02/wildfire-flames-whip-dangerously-close-to-homes-in-alberta-video/
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