Massive fires in Napa and Sonoma counties burn structures, force evacuations, close hospitals

By Peter Fimrite, Jill Tucker, and Demian Bulwa 9 October 2017 (The San Francisco Chronicle) – Several massive wildfires burned out of control in Napa and Sonoma counties early Monday, destroying an untold number of homes and businesses, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and shutting down major roadways as firefighters sought to halt […]

Beyond Harvey and Irma: Militarizing homeland security in the climate-change era

By Michael T. Klare 17 September 2017 (TomDispatch) – Deployed to the Houston area to assist in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, U.S. military forces hadn’t even completed their assignments when they were hurriedly dispatched to Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to face Irma, the fiercest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. […]

I’m a woman who fought wildfires for 7 years. Climate change is absolutely making them worse. Warmer climate is creating the perfect conditions for long wildfire seasons in the U.S. West.

By Anastasia Selby  14 September 2017 (Vox) – The mundane days all run together. But those days when I was genuinely unsure if I would make it to the end of my shift intact are the ones that stand out. I remember fighting a fire on the Angeles National Forest in 2002. Our crew flew […]

Weather extremes, fossil fuel pollution cost US $240 billion – “The evidence is undeniable: the more fossil fuels we burn, the faster the climate continues to change”

By Alister Doyle 27 September 2017 OSLO (Reuters) – Weather extremes and air pollution from burning fossil fuels cost the United States $240 billion a year in the past decade, according to a report [pdf] on Wednesday that urged President Donald Trump to do more to combat climate change. This year is likely to be […]

Seattle experienced warmest and driest summer ever recorded in 2017

By Christine Clarridge 22 September 2017 (The Seattle Times) – This summer in Seattle was the warmest and driest ever recorded.For those of us living in the Puget Sound region, it might not come as a surprise. In fact, it’s been a year full of extremes, with numerous daytime high records broken, one of the […]

Image of the Day: Time lapse view of Eagle River wildfire near Hood, Oregon

By Raymond Perkins 14 September 2017(Facebook) – A couple of time lapse videos from last night, taken from the Wind River bridge, near Carson, Oregon. This is a section of the fire that they are not going to fight, far too steep to get anyone or equipment into.Pretty scary how fast this fire can just […]

This weather is not normal. And it will only get worse. “How many more lives must be destroyed by historic hurricanes, floods, and wildfires before the government admits that climate change is a problem?”

By Emily Atkin 7 September 2017 (New Republic) – The days leading up to Hurricane Harvey’s landfall in Texas last week were some of the most nerve-wracking in meteorological history. Forecasters watched helplessly as a true monster storm—one that would eventually become the most extreme rain event in recorded American history—moved toward Houston, the country’s […]

Forests west of the Cascades will see more fires, bigger fires with global warming

By Hal Bernton 9 September 2017 BEACON ROCK STATE PARK, Skamania County (The Seattle Times) – As night fell last Monday in the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon slopes burned as if carpet-bombed from above. Winds acted like bellows in a hearth to supercharge the flames spread by embers flying from ridge to ridge. Stands […]

Has global warming intensified 2017’s wildfires in the U.S. West? “When we remember that the relationship between temperature and fire is exponential, we’re really talking about a very different western United States in 50 years”

By Robinson Meyer  7 September 2017 (The Atlantic) – This wasn’t supposed to be a bad year for Western wildfires.Last winter, a weak La Niña bloomed across the Pacific. It sent flume after flume of rain to North America and irrigated half the continent. Water penetrated deep into the soil of Western forests, and mammoth […]

Potent mix of record heat and dryness fuels wildfires across the U.S. West and British Columbia – “These unprecedented extreme events are exactly the types of events that are more likely due to the global warming that’s already occurred”

By Georgina Gustin 5 September 2017 (Inside Climate News) – Wildfires burned across hundreds of thousands of acres in the American and Canadian West this week, fueled by scorching temperatures that are breaking heat and fire records across the region.In California, while temperatures have eased, at least 15 cities have seen record-breaking heat, and the […]

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