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(Reuters) -Winds and lightning strikes have sparked and fanned wildfires across the Pacific Northwest this week, including the largest fire currently burning in the U.S., which was rapidly expanding near the Oregon-Idaho border on Friday. The Durkee Fire near Huntington, Oregon, has scorched 600 square miles (1,600 square km), an area more than half the size of Rhode Island’s land mass, authorities said. It is threatening several towns. The blaze was set off by lightning […]
PARIS, Aug 14, 2023 (AFP) – The US wildfire in which almost 100 have died in Hawaii is among the most deadly of the 21st century. Some previous wildfires: – Australia – In “Black Saturday” in Australia’s Victoria state, 173 people were killed, in Australia’s worst bushfire on February 7, 2009. Whole towns and more than 2,000 homes were destroyed. – Greece in 2007 and 2018 – In Greece’s worst-ever fire disaster, 103 people died […]
KAHULUI, United States, Aug 11, 2023 (AFP) – A terrifying wildfire that left a historic Hawaiian town in charred ruins has killed at least 55 people, authorities said Thursday, making it one of the deadliest disasters in the US state’s history. Brushfires on the west coast of Hawaii’s Maui island — fueled by high winds from a nearby hurricane — broke out Tuesday and rapidly engulfed the seaside town of Lahaina. The flames moved […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Canada’s Quebec province, not used to the huge number, scale and strength of wildfires ravaging the rest of the country, has become the latest hotspot with about 160 fires burning on Tuesday, most of those out of control. In the hardest-hit Abitibi-Temiscamingue region of the province, more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) north of Montreal, fires that have disrupted mining and forestry operations are “worrying,” said Quebec Premier François Legault. “We […]
MADRID, May 20, 2023 (AFP) – Spanish authorities said Saturday that firefighters and soldiers were managing to contain a blaze in the country’s west that has forced hundreds of people to evacuate from nearby villages. “Today, we’re hoping to strike a blow against this fire… It’s a very intense task,” said civil protection coordinator Nieves Villar, adding that conditions had improved as the high wind-speeds of recent days dropped back. That prompted regional forest fire […]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon hit a nearly 15-year high this week, according to official figures that provided the latest warning on the advancing destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest. Satellite monitoring detected 3,358 fires on Monday, August 22, the highest number for any 24-hour period since September 2007, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE. The number was nearly triple that recorded on the […]
Rome, Italy | AFP Italy faced the hottest day of the current heatwave Friday with red extreme heat warnings issued for 16 cities across the country, as firefighters battled blazes up and down the country. Worst hit is expected to be Milan in the north with temperatures hitting 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), while Bologna to its south and the capital Rome could hit 39 degrees, according to official government estimates. Other major cities under […]
Paris, France | AFP by Stephane ORJELLET and Patrick GALEY The fires that have torched through Europe are on course to make 2022 a record year for forest loss on the continent, as scientists warn climate change is already contributing to ever fiercer blazes. Fires in parts of France, Spain and Portugal have already burned more land so far this year than in all of 2021 — some 517,881 hectares (5,000 km2), or the equivalent […]
by Martín SILVA Agence France-Presse Santo Corazón, Bolivia (AFP) – The road through San Matias, Bolivia, is a no man’s land. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of once lush forest are now a wasteland of twisted, carbonized tree stumps. It is a protected area, but San Matias — which also hosts subsistence farmers, cattle ranches and quartz mines — burns every year as land is cleared for the next planting season. The practice is legal […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Wildfires in Siberia, North America and around the Mediterranean caused record levels of planet-warming CO2 emissions this summer, the EU’s Earth monitoring service said Tuesday. Globally, forests going up in flames emitted more than 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 — equivalent to India’s annual emissions from all sources — in July and August alone, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported. More than half of CO2 […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — The Brazilian Amazon has suffered its worst June for forest fires since 2007, official data showed Thursday, indicating another devastating dry season for the world’s largest rainforest. The INPE research institute said its satellites detected 2,308 fires last month, an increase of 2.3 percent from June 2020. The previous record for the month of June was in 2007 with 3,519 fires. The grim statistic comes after May this year saw the […]
by Glenn CHAPMAN Agence France-Presse CALISTOGA, California (AFP) — The Silverado Trail has long been a place of dreams for Napa Valley wine lovers as it winds gently through vineyards and on to Calistoga. California’s Glass Fire turned much of that dream to ash, destroying a 3-star restaurant at Meadowood resort, torching wineries such as Chateau Boswell, and tainting precious grapes with smoke. The United States’s west coast is experiencing a record-breaking fire season, with […]
