From the pandemic, to the death of George Floyd, to America’s presidential elections, 2020 has been a year of distress – with moments of hope and endurance. These were some of the images that stood out
Continue reading...Category Archives: Wildfires
Humanity is waging war on nature, says UN secretary general
António Guterres lists human-inflicted wounds on natural world in stark message
Humanity is facing a new war, unprecedented in history, the secretary general of the UN has warned, which is in danger of destroying our future before we have fully understood the risk.
The stark message from António Guterres follows a year of global upheaval, with the coronavirus pandemic causing governments to shut down whole countries for months at a time, while wildfires, hurricanes and powerful storms have scarred the globe.
Continue reading...‘Catastrophic’ bushfire burns half of Queensland’s Fraser Island and threatens ecological disaster
The fire on the world’s largest sand island, also known as K’gari, has been burning for six weeks and is encroaching on areas with 1,000-year-old trees
A bushfire has burned across half the World Heritage-listed K’gari/Fraser Island – the world’s biggest sand island, off Australia’s Queensland coast – with potentially catastrophic consequences for its habitats and wildlife.
The blaze, which has been alight for more than six weeks, is threatening major tourism and rainforest areas after burning much of the island’s north.
Continue reading...Australia must prepare for future shaped by extreme climate, bushfire royal commission warns
Report into the apocalyptic 2019-20 bushfires says Australia must radically change its approach to fighting fires under new climate conditions
Australia’s bushfire disaster last summer was just a glimpse of what global heating will deliver to the country in the future, with major changes needed to the way the nation responds, according to the final report of the royal commission.
The royal commission has made 80 recommendations, including calls for a more co-ordinated approach and new legislation to allow the prime minister to declare a national state of emergency.
Continue reading...‘We’ve had so many wins’: why the green movement can overcome climate crisis
Leaded petrol, acid rain, CFCs … the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change
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Leaflets printed on “rather grotty” blue paper. That is how Janet Alty will always remember one of the most successful environment campaigns of modern times: the movement to ban lead in petrol.
There were the leaflets she wrote to warn parents at school gates of the dangers, leaflets to persuade voters and politicians, leaflets to drown out the industry voices saying – falsely – there was nothing to worry about.
Continue reading...Wildfires erupt in Mount Lebanon area after heatwave hits country – video
Firefighters in Lebanon have been battling fierce wildfires across the Mount Lebanon area and along the country’s border with Israel. The Lebanese Civil Defense said rising temperatures and high wind speeds were contributing to the spread of the fires.
Continue reading...‘Total destruction’: why fires are tearing across South America
Wildfires, mostly caused by land clearing for cattle grazing and soya production, have set four nations ablaze
Primatologist Martin Kowalewski is measuring the scale of the fires raging across Latin America not in satellite images, but in the number of caraya monkeys (black-and-gold howlers) that have succumbed to the flames.
“Of the 20 family groups that we used to trace in the wild, each group consisting of seven or eight monkeys, at least five groups were burned alive,” he tells the Guardian. Other animals have also perished at San Cayetano, a nature reserve in Argentina’s northeastern province of Corrientes. “Carpinchos (giant South American rodents), otters, two species of fox, guazú deer, yacaré caimans, turtles, snakes. Birds are better at escaping the fire, but that was before all the deforestation. Now they have nowhere to go because there is nowhere else. The forest is so fragmented that they have nowhere to nest.”
Continue reading...California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
August complex fire expanded beyond 1m acres, elevating it from a mere ‘megafire’ to a new classification: ‘gigafire’
California’s extraordinary year of wildfires has spawned another new milestone – the first “gigafire”, a blaze spanning 1m acres, in modern history.
Related: California fires set bleak record as 4m acres destroyed
Continue reading...Smoke choking California again as dangerous fire conditions continue
Excessive heat warnings will remain in effect on the coast as the state closes in on a new record of 4m acres burned
Smoke from nearly two dozen wildfires burning across California will continue to darken skies across the west this weekend, as residents prepare for more heat, toxic air and conditions that are expected to keep fueling the flames.
The National Weather Service reports that both excessive heat warnings and heat advisories will remain in effect along California’s coast, while the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has extended its Spare the Air Alert through Tuesday, with air quality deemed “unhealthy”. Meanwhile the state is closing in on a devastating new record, with close to 4m acres now consumed by wildfires this season.
Continue reading...Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat
Country faces more than 5,000 fires, with yellow smoke reaching the capital as neighbouring Brazil and Argentina face blazes
Devastating wildfires have broken out across across Paraguay, as drought and record high temperatures continue to exacerbate blazes across South America.
A total of 5,231 individual wildfires broke out across the country on 1 October – up 3,000 on the previous day. Most of were concentrated in the arid Chaco region in the west of the country, but thick yellow smoke had reached as far as the capital, Asunción.
Continue reading...Burned bottles and scorched vines: wineries hit hard by California fires – in pictures
The Glass fire is sweeping through the famous wine regions of Napa and Sonoma in northern California. The wildfire, which erupted on 27 September, has damaged numerous wineries and vineyards, charring grapes and incinerating inventory. Tasting rooms and restaurants have also been hit. The effect on the industry has been described as “catastrophic”. Several Napa Valley growers have said they will forgo a 2020 vintage altogether due to smoke contamination of their crop.
The Glass fire has torched more than 50,000 acres and firefighters are battling to bring it under control. It has also destroyed dozens of homes and thousands of people remain under evacuation orders.
Continue reading...‘We had minutes’: California Glass wildfire rips through wine country – video report
A destructive wildfire is being driven by strong winds through wine country north of San Francisco in California.
The Glass fire burned through Napa and Sonoma counties burning down buildings including wineries in the area.
The fire began Sunday as three fires merged and drove into vineyards and mountain areas, including part of the city of Santa Rosa. Around 70,000 people were under evacuation orders
- Charred homes and crumbled walls: tallying the destruction of a California wildfire
- 'There's a lot of hurt': four years of fire take toll on California's wine country
Charred homes and crumbled walls: tallying the destruction of a California wildfire
Fueled by a heatwave, the Glass fire left a trail of smoldering remains along Mountain Hawk Drive in Santa Rosa
Smoke mixed with morning mist on Mountain Hawk Drive in Santa Rosa, California, on Wednesday morning, creating a thick layer of gray that hung over the smoldering remains of family homes that had been charred by the Glass fire days before.
The fast-moving fire had arrived in the neighborhood on Monday night, consuming roughly an acre every five seconds and leveling many of the hillside homes. Now, remnants of lives lived lined the street. Melted squirt guns left on burned patio tables. A charred piano underneath askew picture frames. Homegrown apples on a singed tree were cooked on the vine.
Continue reading...Brazil’s Amazon rainforest suffers worst fires in a decade
- Satellites record 61% rise in hotspots over September 2019
- Scientist warns: ‘It could get worse if the drought continues’
Fires in Brazil’s Amazon increased 13% in the first nine months of the year compared with a year ago, as the rainforest region experiences its worst rash of blazes in a decade, data from space research agency Inpe has shown.
Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hotspots in the world’s largest rainforest, a 61% rise from the same month in 2019.
Continue reading...Oregon’s firefighting prisoners – in pictures
Prisoners in Oregon have been helping professional firefighters combat the state’s biggest wildfires in a century. They are part of a scheme that for seven decades has aimed to rehabilitate inmates by teaching them a trade, while providing extra boots on the ground during intense wildfire seasons
Continue reading...California wine country fire forces evacuation of hospital
All 55 patients who were being treated at the Napa Valley hospital were safely evacuated
A wind-driven wildfire has forced the evacuation of several hundred homes and a hospital in the heart of northern California’s wine country.
The blaze, dubbed the Glass Fire, broke out before dawn on Sunday near in Calistoga in Napa Valley, and raced toward the adjacent towns of Deer Park and St Helena. The fire spread across more than 1,000 acres (400 hectares) and flames advanced within a mile of the Adventist Health St Helena hospital.
Continue reading...California braces for dangerous heat as wildfire battle continues
Triple-digit temperatures could spark new fires just a few weeks after a record heatwave
California is bracing for another dangerously warm weekend, with dry winds, parched vegetation, and triple-digit temperatures threatening to ignite new fires and complicating containment efforts in an embattled state.
With only a few weeks’ reprieve after a record heatwave in early September, firefighters have made progress in containing the dozens of blazes tearing across the region. But fatigued crews – many of whom have spent weeks fighting on the frontline – are preparing for a potentially rough week ahead.
Continue reading...Can California’s tourism industry survive a year unlike any other?
Attractions from Big Sur to Disneyland reel in the face of the pandemic and historic wildfires
Summers are always busy in Big Sur, the picturesque region in northern California known for towering forests that give way to sweeping cliffs and sandy beaches. But this summer has been unlike any other, as the state reckons with a global pandemic and historic wildfires.
Like many scenic small towns in California, Big Sur’s local economy relies heavily on the tourist traffic that sweeps through every summer. It seemed like the kind of place that could have been hit hard by a nosedive in tourism.
Continue reading...California firefighters battle El Dorado fire – video
Firefighters in Southern California continue to tackle one of 27 huge wildfires blazing across the state which has already burned more than 21,600 acres (8,741 hectares) of forest.
A firefighter has died while battling the El Dorado fire which has been burning in San Bernardino National Forest since 5 September.
A front of humid and rainy weather has brought some relief to western states that have suffered a historically devastating fire season
- California firefighter dies battling blaze while rainy weather brings some relief
- Wildfire smoke closes Yosemite but forecast offers hope for US north-west
Wildfire smoke closes Yosemite but forecast offers hope for US north-west
California governor warns about climate crisis as new wildfire evacuations ordered north-east of Los Angeles
As wildfires continued to burn across the US west coast, with smoke reaching as far as Europe, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued a stark warning on climate, saying: “The facts are the facts.”
Forecast rain for the Pacific north-west prompted hopes on Thursday of improved fire-fighting conditions in Washington state and Oregon, parts of which have been decimated and swathed in the world’s worst air quality.
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