By Mex Cooper The CFA chief heavily criticised for his handling of Black Saturday will be responsible for keeping Victoria safe as it faces its worst-ever fire season, Premier John Brumby has said. Mr Brumby warned Victorians that 13 years of drought will make the coming fire season, less than 10 weeks away, potentially […]
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY GRANBURY, Texas — Firefighters assigned to the Texas Forest Service this year have grown accustomed to living away from wives and husbands, skipping family gatherings, missing anniversaries. PHOTOS: Texas battles wildfires They check in daily to the Forest Service’s command center in this north-central Texas town, no days off, waiting […]
By TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press Writer ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — Sam the koala, who gained worldwide fame and sympathy when she was rescued during Australia’s devastating wildfires this year, was euthanized Thursday after a veterinarian found the cysts that threatened her life were inoperable. The 4-year-old koala had developed the cysts associated with urogenital chlamydiosis, […]
By BRETT FRENCHThe Billings Gazette As the climate warms over the next four decades, portions of Wyoming and Montana are at ground zero for larger areas burned by wildland fires and an increase in air pollution from those fires. The forecasts come from a recently released study done for the Environmental Protection Agency by Harvard’s […]
MELBOURNE, Feb 26 (AFP) Feb 26, 2009 – Hundreds of Australian schools and childcare centres will be closed Friday because of a resurgent threat from wildfires that have already killed more than 200 people, officials said. … Temperatures of 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) are expected across the state on Friday, raising fears that […]
Black Saturday Recount By Ioan Thomas The fire that hit Victoria on “Black Saturday” was one that had never been seen in Australia before. Victoria had gone through “Ash Wednesday” in 1983 and “Black Friday” in 1939. Australia’s capital city, Canberra, was badly damaged in 2004 by bushfires, with over 500 houses destroyed and four […]
All signs point to the climate becoming more extreme by Marian Wilkinson and Ben Cubby When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave […]
By James Campbell, Sunday Herald Sun MELBOURNE is shrouded in a smoke haze as the Victoria fires continue to burn across the state. Visibility at Melbourne airport is down to 2km with the Bureau of Meteorology warning the haze could linger until the end of next week. The Environment Protection Authority has issued a smoke […]
Here’s some Grade-A doomer porn, from the LA Times: It feels like Armageddon. Part of Australia becomes a raging inferno, killing more than 170 people and perhaps millions of animals, and elsewhere Down Under floods have forced people from their homes, and into watery streets they now share with crocodiles. Costa Rica still reels from […]
MORE than a million native animals may have been killed in the Victorian bushfires, a wildlife expert says. The massive effort to rescue animals caught in the fire has begun with triage centres set up to assess injured wildlife at staging posts at Kilmore, Whittlesea and Redesdale near Bendigo. The animals are then being treated […]
