By Dale Kasler, Ryan Sabalow, and Phillip Reese 18 July 2019 (The Sacramento Bee) – Jennifer Burt knows she lives in a fire-prone community. That’s why she’s done everything she can to fire-proof her home in Meadow Vista, in the bushy, densely wooded Placer County foothills, even installing a sprinkler system on the roof. Yet […]
30 July 2019 (AFP) – Gigantic forest fires have regularly raged through the vast expanses of Russia’s Siberia, but the magnitude of this year’s blazes has reached an exceptional level with fears of a long-term impact on the environment. As fires sweep across millions of hectares enveloping entire cities in black smoke and noxious fumes, […]
29 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – A series of natural disasters are hitting Siberia, with the latest a dire threat from severe flooding to Baikal – the oldest and deepest lake in the worth, containing 20% of the planet’s unfrozen freshwater. The alert concerns flooding in Baikalsk – where evacuation has begun – and […]
By Edward Helmore 26 July 2019 (The Guardian) – The Arctic is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, with huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia, and Alaska producing plumes of smoke that can be seen from space. The Arctic region has recorded its hottest June ever. Since the start of that month, more than 100 wildfires have […]
22 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk are suffering smoke pollution and infernos rage in forests after hot, dry weather. Pictures show the scale of the smoke in major population centres from the raging wildfires with the cause seen mainly as out-of-control forest fires in Krasnoyarsk region, the second largest in Russia. […]
16 July 2019 (The Siberian Times) – After a month of warm, dry weather and wildfires, the huge crater nicknamed ‘Mouth of Hell’ is now under direct threat. The fear is that flames burning on the rim of the depression will weaken the permafrost and cause a major enlargement of the Batagai or Batagaika ‘megaslump’, […]
By Brian Kahn 18 July 2019 (Gizmodo) – Vast stretches of Earth’s northern latitudes are on fire right now. Hot weather has engulfed a huge portion of the Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland to Siberia. That’s helped create conditions ripe for wildfires, including some truly massive ones burning in remote parts of the region that […]
By Kevin Krajick 15 July 2019 (Columbia University) – Against a backdrop of long-term rises in temperature in recent decades, California has seen ever higher spikes in seasonal wildfires, and, in the last two years, a string of disastrous, record-setting blazes. This has led scientists, politicians and media to ponder: what role might warming climate be […]
By John Bacon 4 July 2019 (USA TODAY) – Alaska’s biggest city won’t be marking the nation’s 243rd birthday with fireworks displays as Anchorage struggles with dry conditions, wildfires and what could become the hottest day on record. The city’s all-time high temperature record of 85 degrees dates back 50 years. It could fall today, with a […]
By Doug Struck 18 June 2019 GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA (The Christian Science Monitor) – Maria Clemens took time off from her post-college summer job on a Montana ranch to hike into this national park to see a glacier. “I don’t like it,” she pronounced on the trail as she returned. “It’s just kind of […]