Wildfires

[kassy]

Thanks!

[glennbuck]

Australia lost 14% of Forest Ha in one season!

Australia has a total of 134 million hectares of forest, which is equivalent to 17 per cent of Australia's land area. Of this total forest area, determined as at 2016, 132 million hectares (98 per cent) are 'Native forests', 1.95 million hectares are 'Commercial plantations' and 0.47 million hectares are 'Other forest'. Australia has about 3per cent of the world's forest area, and globally is the country with the seventh largest forest area.

18,736,070 Ha/46,300,000 acres lost in 2019/2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season

[bbr2315]

Australia lost 14% of Forest Ha in one season!

Australia has a total of 134 million hectares of forest, which is equivalent to 17per cent of Australia's land area. Of this total forest area, determined as at 2016, 132 million hectares (98 per cent) are 'Native forests', 1.95 million hectares are 'Commercial plantations' and 0.47 million hectares are 'Other forest'. Australia has about 3per cent of the world's forest area, and globally is the country with the seventh largest forest area.

18,736,070 Ha/46,300,000 acres lost in 2019/2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season

No, Australia did not "lose" 14% of its forest coverage. 14% of Forest Ha burned, but it regrows explosively after fires. Although damage to the rainforests will take longer to recover and there may be new speciation in those areas, the % of area forested will not decrease, and in fact the regrowth is likely to be a net carbon sink IMO.

Australia is full of Eucalyptus.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2014/03/03/eucalyptus-and-fire/

Some, like the mighty, 100-metre-tall Eucalyptus regnans — also known as the mountain ash, stringy gum or Tasmanian oak — hold their seeds inside small, hard capsules; a fire will instantly trigger a massive drop of seeds to the newly fertilised ground.

The myriad bright green buds that sprout spectacularly from the trunks of other eucalypts in the aftermath of a big fire are another kind of regeneration mechanism, bursting through the scorched and blackened bark within weeks of a blaze.

Within five or six years, ‘a burned forest will be looking pretty good’, Kirkpatrick says. ‘And a large proportion of Tasmania’s flora fits into this fire ecology. Pea plants, wattles — their germination is stimulated by heat and smoke. Fire is really, really important in Tasmania.’

At the centre of it all, though, is the eucalypt. Because these trees do not just resist fire, they actively encourage it. ‘They withstand fire, they need fire; to some extent, they create fire,’ Bowman says. ‘The leaves, the bark, don’t decompose. They’re highly, highly flammable. And on a hot day, you can smell their oils.’

The bark and leaves of eucalypts seem almost made to promote fire. Some are known as stringyor candle-barks: long, easily lit strips hang loosely off their trunks and, once alight, whirl blazing up into the flammable canopy above, or are carried by the wind many kilometres ahead of a fire to speed its advance.”

I have personally seen the burning / regrowth cycle in Australia and it is extraordinarily rapid. While burnt-out forests are certainly a sad sight for human eyes, and the animal toll is devastating, massive bushfires have always been a reality, and are consequently actually a necessity for many species.

[glennbuck]

Australia lost 14% of Forest Ha in one season!

Australia has a total of 134 million hectares of forest, which is equivalent to 17per cent of Australia's land area. Of this total forest area, determined as at 2016, 132 million hectares (98 per cent) are 'Native forests', 1.95 million hectares are 'Commercial plantations' and 0.47 million hectares are 'Other forest'. Australia has about 3per cent of the world's forest area, and globally is the country with the seventh largest forest area.

18,736,070 Ha/46,300,000 acres lost in 2019/2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season

No, Australia did not "lose" 14% of its forest coverage. 14% of Forest Ha burned, but it regrows explosively after fires. Although damage to the rainforests will take longer to recover and there may be new speciation in those areas, the % of area forested will not decrease, and in fact the regrowth is likely to be a net carbon sink IMO.

Australia is full of Eucalyptus.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2014/03/03/eucalyptus-and-fire/

Some, like the mighty, 100-metre-tall Eucalyptus regnans — also known as the mountain ash, stringy gum or Tasmanian oak — hold their seeds inside small, hard capsules; a fire will instantly trigger a massive drop of seeds to the newly fertilised ground.

The myriad bright green buds that sprout spectacularly from the trunks of other eucalypts in the aftermath of a big fire are another kind of regeneration mechanism, bursting through the scorched and blackened bark within weeks of a blaze.

Within five or six years, ‘a burned forest will be looking pretty good’, Kirkpatrick says. ‘And a large proportion of Tasmania’s flora fits into this fire ecology. Pea plants, wattles — their germination is stimulated by heat and smoke. Fire is really, really important in Tasmania.’

At the centre of it all, though, is the eucalypt. Because these trees do not just resist fire, they actively encourage it. ‘They withstand fire, they need fire; to some extent, they create fire,’ Bowman says. ‘The leaves, the bark, don’t decompose. They’re highly, highly flammable. And on a hot day, you can smell their oils.’

The bark and leaves of eucalypts seem almost made to promote fire. Some are known as stringyor candle-barks: long, easily lit strips hang loosely off their trunks and, once alight, whirl blazing up into the flammable canopy above, or are carried by the wind many kilometres ahead of a fire to speed its advance.”

I have personally seen the burning / regrowth cycle in Australia and it is extraordinarily rapid. While burnt-out forests are certainly a sad sight for human eyes, and the animal toll is devastating, massive bushfires have always been a reality, and are consequently actually a necessity for many species.

Thanks for the update. Growing to full size takes an ash tree anywhere from 16 to 60 years. Might be losing more forest area quicker than it can recover if these summer bushfires continue to increase with rising temperatures.

Ash Tree Average Growth Rate

Trees of the Ash species are classified as moderately fast growing due to their ability to grow between 18 and 25 feet in a single decade. Some species, including European ash (Fraxinus excelsior), grow slightly more slowly, reaching a little less than 18 feet in 10 years. Most species average about 2 feet of growth per year for the first part of their life when planted as ornamentals, but they grow more slowly when used in a row with other trees.

[Rodius]

While BBR is correct in that fires are a natural part of Australia, the scale of the 2020 fires is not natural.

14% is a huge percentage, and fires are only going to get worse on average as the climate warms.

A lot of animals died in the fires. Animals are an important part of recovery and they are not there. Research is still being conducted concerning regrowth, but that will take time, obviously.

The Blue Mountains were hit so hard that 293 threatened animals (with the koala effectively extinct in the region) and 680 threatened plants.

I wish it was a case of this being normal and recovery will be normal, but it wont be. The fires we massive, hot, fast moving and destroyed everything in their path. While recovery will happen, it is unlikely to return to the old normal.

And rainforests.... well, they have never burned. Tasmania lost a lot of rainforest that has never burned before, so that wont be recovering like other regions where plants and animals require fire to survive. The predictions are for more rainforest to burn as the years go by.

While the 2020 fire season has been the worst one to date, the expectation is they will get worse. And since 14% was burned this time, and the frequency of the fire events is increasing, the natural environment isn't going to get a chance to recover like before.

There is no good news about this years fires, and it is going to get worse. And it isn't helped when the Govt refuses to acknowledge climate change further than it is a natural change and there is nothing we can do about it.


https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/fire/park-recovery-and-rehabilitation/recovering-from-2019-20-fires/understanding-the-impact-of-the-2019-20-fires

[glennbuck]

While BBR is correct in that fires are a natural part of Australia, the scale of the 2020 fires is not natural.

A lot of animals died in the fires. Animals are an important part of recovery and they are not there. Research is still being conducted concerning regrowth, but that will take time, obviously.



https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/fire/park-recovery-and-rehabilitation/recovering-from-2019-20-fires/understanding-the-impact-of-the-2019-20-fires

Nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia’s devastating bushfire season of 2019 and 2020, according to scientists who have revealed for the first time the scale of the impact on the country’s native wildlife.

The Guardian has learned that an estimated 143 million mammals, 180 million birds, 51 million frogs and a staggering 2.5 billion reptiles were affected by the fires that burned across the continent.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/28/almost-3-billion-animals-affected-by-australian-megafires-report-shows-aoe

[gerontocrat]

Soon we will be asking  "where is it not burning?"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/argentina-delta-fires-rage-out-of-control-parana-river
'Everything is burning': Argentina's delta fires rage out of control

Cattle ranching and drought have turned the Paraná River grasslands to tinder, threatening disaster for the area’s wildlife

A raging fire described as “completely out of control” is threatening one of South America’s major wetland ecosystems. The fire has been burning for months now, and is visible from the balconies of luxury apartments along the shoreline of the Paraná River in Argentina’s central city of Rosario.

n normal times, Rosario’s riverfront homes enjoy a spectacular view of the seemingly never-ending green grasslands on the opposite bank of the Paraná, a waterway stretching over a mile across as it passes through the city.

In recent months, however, dwellers in the luxury condos have been congregating on their balconies as the wall of red flames from thousands of fires raging through the Paraná delta grasslands rises high into the sky.

“Everything is burning, it’s completely out of control,” Leonel Mingo, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Argentina, told the Guardian. “Once a fire reaches that scale, it becomes virtually impossible to stop.”

The Paraná is South America’s second largest river after the Amazon and the eighth longest river in the world. Its floodplain, known by Rosarinos as “la isla”, is not actually an island, but a vast delta covering some 15,000km2 , through which the Paraná drains towards the Atlantic Ocean 300km away.

The giant delta is clearly visible in satellite imagery as a dark green wedge on the northern margin of the Paraná from Rosario to Buenos Aires.

Giant plumes of smoke from the fires raging since February have at times covered the streets of Rosario and other places along the Paraná with a layer of ash from scorched plants and animals. The air in Rosario has been unbreathable for weeks at a time.

Far from abating, the number of fires has been rising. Liotta works at the Scasso Natural Science Museum in San Nicolás, where he has been monitoring the delta fires via Nasa satellites. “We’ve identified 8,024 likely fires so far this year, almost half of them this month of July.”


Animals farmed: join us for monthly updates
 Read more
Advertisement

Liotta worked backwards and found the scale of the
calamity was unprecedented. “The average number of yearly satellite-detected hotspots was only 1,800 in 2012–2019. We’re already at over 8,000 and barely halfway through the year.”

Although cattle ranchers, illegal hunters and property developers have encroached on its rich habitat, the Paraná delta still teems with diverse wildlife, all facing a dire challenge to their survival.

Liotta says it breaks his heart to imagine the scale of destruction. “I can’t help thinking about the animals when I see the fires. If we humans are suffering so much, can you imagine what it must be like for the creatures being burned alive?”

[ArcticMelt2]

https://twitter.com/WMO/status/1288841847708803073

July 2020 has witnessed escalation in #ArcticFires previously unseen in #CopernicusAtmosphere Monitoring Service Global Fire Assimilation System data.

July total estimated #wildfire CO2 emissions have totally smashed the record set in 2019, says @m_parrington

[Niall Dollard]

Lots ongoing in the Sakha Republic, Russia

(Click to highlight)

[Tom_Mazanec]

Rapid spread of California wildfires prompts evacuations
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/510132-rapid-spread-of-california-wildfires-prompt-evacuations

A wildfire in Southern California that began Friday evening amid blazing temperatures spread across 1,900 acres and prompted evacuations.

Officials confirmed in a tweet Saturday morning that the flames were zero percent contained. The Riverside County Fire Department responded with air and ground resources, and at least 375 firefighters were assigned to the blaze, dubbed the Apple Fire.

[kassy]

Amazon region: Brazil records big increase in fires

Official figures from Brazil have shown a big increase in the number of fires in the Amazon region in July compared with the same month last year.

Satellite images compiled by Brazil's National Space Agency revealed there were 6,803 - a rise of 28%.

...

The latest figures raise concerns about a repeat of the huge wildfires that shocked the world in August and September last year.

"It's a terrible sign," Ane Alencar, science director at Brazil's Amazon Environmental Research Institute, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

"We can expect that August will already be a difficult month and September will be worse yet."

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53626544

[ritter]

Sonoma and Napa counties in the North Bay Area of California are having a time of it. I'm, once again, adjacent to the mandatory evacuation zone for the Wallbridge Fire. 3 out of 4 years now. The lightning over the last few days sparked a number of fires and California's resources are stretched really thin.

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/live-updates-multiple-fires-in-sonoma-and-north-bay-continue-to-rage-with/?gallery=ad74281d-bdc8-437e-84b8-ac495e0166a9

https://www.ksro.com/2020/08/19/cal-fire-updates-sonoma-and-napa-county-fires/

[glennbuck]

Firefighters are in short supply in California as the state continues to face hundreds of fast-spreading blazes.

Nearly 7,000 firefighters are currently on the frontlines fighting the fires, but it isn’t enough: agencies have requested 375 fire engines from neighboring states. Arizona and Nevada have sent equipment to California and Texas has offered to send firefighting crews, Governor Gavin Newsom said in a press conference on Wednesday.

“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said. “That is a resource challenge where they are stretched in ways where we haven’t seen in the last few years.”

The difficult job is made even harder this year by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the incarcerated laborers relied upon to fight fires are out of commission due to outbreaks in prisons across the state. Prisoners are crucial in the state’s fire response plan, fighting fires in exchange for wages as low as $2 per hour and reduced sentences.

Non-incarcerated firefighters who are able to work risk contracting Covid-19 themselves. Most firefighters stay in makeshift communities near the hot zones, sleeping close together. A Covid-19 outbreak could quickly sweep through such camps, and exposure to wildfire smoke can worsen Covid-19 symptoms and outcomes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention.

[Bruce Steele]

It sure is smokey and I am hundreds of miles from the fires. I counted at least 30 active fires with a reported acreage of over 220,000 acres combined on this Cal Fire map

https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/

[wili]

Stay safe, Bruce. Do you have a way to filter the air?

This maybe should go into the stupid questions folder, but I was listening to some expert on the radio who, talking about the CA fires, said that GW was not supposed to increase lightning strikes, but I have heard the opposite, and searching, came up with this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lightning-may-increase-with-global-warming/

Was the expert wrong, or have these studies been overturned by more recent ones that show no increase?

Intuitively, it makes sense to me that GW would lead to more lightning, because there are more intense storms in general, and the clouds are getting higher, as I recall. But the science of such things is always more complicated than these few considerations, and I suppose there could be some dampening effect on lightning from some aspect of GW, but I can't think of one.

[kassy]

Maybe the expert was referring to this paper:

Lightning storms less likely in a warming planet, study suggests

Lightning may strike less often in future across the globe as the planet warms, a scientific study suggests.

The research forecasts a 15 per cent drop in the average number of lightning flashes worldwide by the turn of this century, if global temperatures are in the top range of forecasts.

...

Unlike traditional calculations of lightning flashes at the global scale, which are based on the height of clouds, their approach takes into account the movement of tiny ice particles that form and move within clouds. Electrical charges build up in these ice particles, and in cold water droplets and soft hail formed inside clouds. These are discharged during storms, giving rise to lightning flashes and thunder. Scientists estimate there are 1.4 billion lightning flashes each year around the world.

The latest results, accounting for a 5C rise in global average temperatures by the year 2100, show that on average lightning flashes are less likely in future, in contrast to previous studies.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180212111718.htm

So related to global warming it will cause less lightning strikes by 2100 which does not tell us anything about the run up which is more interesting to us.

How well their cloud modelling holds is another thing.

The new study, detailed in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Science, has found a relatively simple way to use other atmospheric factors to predict changes in lightning rates. The findings suggest that lighting rates will increase 12 percent per every degree Celsius (about 2°F) rise in global temperatures. That comes to a 50 percent increase by the end of the century.

So for the near future i would go with the SciAm quote.

We´ll worry about 2100 when we get there. 

[nanning]

Stay safe ritter. And please let us know if there interesting local info on the fires.

[Tor Bejnar]

There are more lightning flashed north of Alaska in recent years, apparently.  But those lightning strikes are definitely not causing more wildfires!  (I'm waiting for reports of a lightning strike over a large methane plume - then there will be an Arctic Ocean wildfire.)

[Sigmetnow]

California fires, heatwave and coronavirus puts state in crisis
Aug 20

• California, strapped for emergency resources, battles a slew of crises: rapidly spreading fires, rolling power blackouts, a stifling heatwave and a coronavirus pandemic that is made more dangerous as smoke affects air quality.
• California has been hit by nearly 11,000 lightning strikes that have caused more than 367 known fires across the state in recent days, 26 of which are major.
• The LNU Lightning Complex Fire, a group of fires that have affected Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties, had burned more than 124,000 acres and was 0% contained as of Thursday morning.
...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/20/california-fires-heatwave-and-coronavirus-puts-state-in-crisis.html

"Scary video of the San Mateo and Santa Cruz fire”
https://mobile.twitter.com/teslaownerssv/status/1296122148738568194
30 second time lapse, distant view, at the link.

Image below:  US Drought Monitor.   Click to embiggen.
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu

[glennbuck]

Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes were documented during a 72-hour stretch this week in the heaviest spate of thunderstorms to hit California in more than a decade, igniting 367 individual fires. Almost two dozen of them have grown into major conflagrations, authorities said.

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/north-america/tens-of-thousands-flee-as-lightning-sparked-fires-rage-across-california-39464798.html

[wili]

Thanks, kas. It's always more complicated than it seems.

[Florifulgurator]

Here is a magnificent German/French docu on the science of wildfire. Made before the Australian Black Summer. Also no mention of the Greenland peat fires ( https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40877099 ).
Still magnificent. Should be produced also in english.

[...]

Video gone. But today YouTube got me this 2-part english version from Deutsche Welle.

[Sebastian Jones]

Firefighters are in short supply in California as the state continues to face hundreds of fast-spreading blazes.

SNIP
The difficult job is made even harder this year by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the incarcerated laborers relied upon to fight fires are out of commission due to outbreaks in prisons across the state. Prisoners are crucial in the state’s fire response plan, fighting fires in exchange for wages as low as $2 per hour and reduced sentences.

SNIP

Really? Americans have penal labour battalions fighting fires? Do they work in chain gangs? Or individual ball and chain set ups? Are most Americans OK with this?

[J Cartmill]

Thirteenth Amendment:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

There is a long and dismal history of prison slavery and peonage in the US.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Firefighters are in short supply in California as the state continues to face hundreds of fast-spreading blazes.

SNIP
The difficult job is made even harder this year by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the incarcerated laborers relied upon to fight fires are out of commission due to outbreaks in prisons across the state. Prisoners are crucial in the state’s fire response plan, fighting fires in exchange for wages as low as $2 per hour and reduced sentences.

SNIP

Really? Americans have penal labour battalions fighting fires? Do they work in chain gangs? Or individual ball and chain set ups? Are most Americans OK with this?

Most Americans say "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." Yes, most people I know are fine with treating prisoners this way.

[ritter]

Stay safe ritter. And please let us know if there interesting local info on the fires.

Thanks. This is a tough battle for the firefighters. There are so many fires in California that there just aren't enough resources. We've got teams coming in from other states today that will help. So far, the fire local to me has been kept out of towns but is definitely destroying more rural homes. Provided the winds don't change direction, my town will be ok (still packed and ready to leave, if necessary). The town I'd lived in a dozen miles south is under evacuation warning and was entirely evacuated last year. It's rough on everybody. And Trump is back with the ever so useful advisory of raking our forests.

[nanning]

Must be difficult not to know where you'll be in a months' time and if you still have a house. You probably have relatives and friends in the evacuation zones. Perhaps you could open up your house for some. All in it together
I wish you luck.

[ritter]

Must be difficult not to know where you'll be in a months' time and if you still have a house. You probably have relatives and friends in the evacuation zones. Perhaps you could open up your house for some. All in it together
I wish you luck.

Yes, it's difficult. Covid doesn't help with the opening of the doors, either. The evacuated people I know are, fortunately, all housed with their families. After several years of back to back evacuations, people tend to just leave the area rather than evacuate a short distance away because chain evacuations are awful.

[interstitial]

Really? Americans have penal labour battalions fighting fires? Do they work in chain gangs? Or individual ball and chain set ups? Are most Americans OK with this?

It is on a strictly volunteer basis. No restraints of any kind are used. It is only available to low risk inmates. I am not sure what the problem is.
Most likely they are used to clear vegetation for a fire block.

[Tor Bejnar]

Thanks, Sebastian and interstitial!

California's inmate firefighters: 9 things to know
1. Inmate firefighters date back to World War II
2. There are camps in 27 counties
3. An average year yields 3 million hours in emergency response work
4. Inmates must earn the right to work in these camps
5. Certain crimes make you ineligible for the program
6. Inmates considered for fire crews go through training from Cal Fire
7. Inmate firefighters can still be employed by Cal Fire (after serving their time)
8. Inmate firefighters get paid for their labor with wages and credits
             yup, slave labor: only $2.90 to $5.12 per day, ... while fighting fires, inmates earn an additional $1 per hour
9. Inmate firefighters work 24-hour shifts alongside Cal Fire crews

Obviously, details at the link.

[wili]

Slavery was not completely abolished in the US. Prisoners are still basically considered slaves.

Penal labor in the United States is explicitly allowed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States

More about this and related atrocities covered in The New Jim Crow

[vox_mundi]

Smoke from California Fires



https://ready.arl.noaa.gov/smoke-bin/smokevrf.pl?yr=&mn=&dy=20

[interstitial]

I was not aware some penal labor is forced that should be stopped immediately. Prison is and should be a punishment, not cruel, but still not desirable. Being productive is good for your well being. The potential for abuse of prison employment is obvious with little incentive by decision makers to stop it. On the other hand the average cost of incarceration is 31000/year and in some states is as high as 60000/year. Paying them full market wage does not make sense but a dollar an hour is too low. Ideally some would get hired after they are out of prison. I doubt that happens though.

[greylib]

This, from the Economist:
https://outline.com/LEjvfe
Over the years I've heard stories: judges and prosecutors being paid off for sending people to private prisons who need to increase their "workforce". Other stories of manufacturers, especially of furniture and white goods, closing down because they can't compete with prison labour.

On the other hand, it's probably better for them to be working - better physically and mentally - than rotting in lockdown for 23 hours a day.

[Tor Bejnar]

I've done prison volunteer work off and on for over 25 years (and both of my parents have done some as well, so I have a few stories from them, too).  Although I don't recall meeting any firefighter (I think my dad did), I've heard about the pluses and minuses of working, and of working 'outside' (prison walls).  Prisoners generally suggest the positives are greater than the negatives.  Jobs like firefighting (I understand) only go to men and women with clean (recent years) prison records and individuals who want to do it.  This is not Southern States chain gangs busting rocks while in irons.

Private prisons:  that's a whole other kettle of fish.  I don't know much, but shivers... 

[Rodius]

Smoke from California Fires

Great visual

[Sigmetnow]

In just a week, wildfires burn 1 million acres in California

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Weary firefighters in California raced Saturday to slow the spread of wildfires that burned nearly one million acres statewide in a week and destroyed hundreds of homes ahead an expected weather change that could bring more lightning strikes like the ones that sparked many of the blazes.
...
Two clusters of wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area grew to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size. Light winds and cooler and more humid nighttime weather helped fire crews make progress on those fires and a third group of fires south of San Francisco ahead of the forecast of warm, dry weather, erratic wind gusts and lightning, state fire officials said.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning of high fire danger across the Bay Area and along the Central Coast, beginning from Sunday morning to Monday afternoon.

“The worst is not behind us. We are in a battle rhythm,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) Chief Thom Porter tweeted.

Since thousands of lightning strikes began on Aug. 15, the state reported 585 wildfires that have burned nearly a million acres, or 1,562 square miles (4,046 square kilometers), according to Cal Fire.

Many were small and remote. The bulk of damage was from three fire “complexes” that were ravaging forest and rural areas in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. They have burned 1,045 square miles (2,700 square kilometers). The fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

“Tuesday night when I went to bed I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch,” said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. “By Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes.” ...

https://apnews.com/9995e3a7bcb32aa9cf0fca3de005896b

[ArcticMelt2]

https://twitter.com/m_parrington/status/1296837312849031169

Daily total fire radiative power of #CaliforniaFires & #ColoradoFires continues >> 2003-2019 mean in #CopernicusAtmosphere GFAS data with 2020 already the highest annual total estimated #wildfire carbon emissions for Colorado.

[pearscot]

I made this from the imagery on the 23rd to show how bad the smoke is over the contiguous U.S. My parents live in Colorado and have not been able to go outside much due to the smoke:

[J Cartmill]

Short video on Russian wildfires:

[Général de GuerreLasse]

<Off topic post removed. Could be reposted in Income Inequality in Politics or a separate thread in that forum. kassy>

[vox_mundi]

<Off topic post removed. Could be reposted in Income Inequality in Politics or a separate thread in that forum. kassy>

[bbr2315]

The posts above this one in this thread are very off topic and should be removed.

Meanwhile the fires in Siberia are raging. Can we make it a rule that reblogging content is not allowed without analysis, it is literally just spam otherwise....!

It looks like another major plume is inbound to the Arctic.

[oren]

The posts above this one in this thread are very off topic and should be removed.

I agree, the US prison system and voluntary or involuntary work is OT, this is the wildfires thread.

Can we make it a rule that reblogging content is not allowed without analysis, it is literally just spam otherwise....!

I disagree, often the analysis has been done in the reblogged content itself. I appreciate efforts to post external articles on this forum, as long as they are of value and posted in an informative manner.

[glennbuck]

The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Arctic wildfires this year is already 35% higher than the figure for the whole of 2019.

The latest data, provided by the EU’s Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service, shows that up to 24 August 245 megatonnes of CO2 had been released from wildfires this year. The figure for the whole of last year was 181 megatonnes.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/arctic-wildfires-emit-35-more-co2-so-far-in-2020-than-for-whole-of-2019

[Tom_Mazanec]

You mean 240 megatons, not 24?

[glennbuck]

You mean 240 megatons, not 24?

Quote from the Guardian not me is it wrong 245 megatons.

[glennbuck]

After reading an article in National Geographic I found myself doodling a graph. Between 2011 and 2017 there were an average of 20 wildfires a year in the UK. In  2018 - there were 80, In 2019 - there were 140. No statistics in for 2020 yet. But I know we broke 140 in June. Thankfully it's been raining a lot recently.

[vox_mundi]

You mean 240 megatons, not 24?

Quote from the Guardian not me is it wrong 245 megatons.

Glenn, you are correct.

24 refers to the date Aug 24 (mm dd) or in international form 24 Aug (dd mm)

[Rodius]

Top End Australia ahving fire conditions worsen.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-30/nt-bushfires-severe-2020-conditions-explained/12610178