[dohboi]

(again, mods, if such a thread has already been started, please merge...are we losing some threads around here?)

“Wildfires are not at all common in northern California during mid-winter, when vegetation is normally very moist. But recent record warmth and prolonged dry spell have dried fuels to near/below record low levels for Feb.

#CAwx #CAfire ”

https://twitter.com/Weather_West/status ... 4959519744

[dohboi]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... downgraded


Sydney bushfire: 'ferocious' blaze threatens homes as RFS confirms damage

Strong winds push flames towards suburban streets as firefighting and reconnaissance aircraft join operation

“We are seeing the fire behave very aggressively,” Fitzsimmons said

[dohboi]

(This is actually about a fire from last year, but it seems weird to resurrect last year's thread for this one story, if it's even still unlocked.)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.4635569

B.C. wildfires triggered mega thunderstorm with volcano-like effects
‘This was the most significant fire-driven thunderstorm event in history,’ meteorologist says

The only real comparison for what happened in B.C. on Aug. 12, 2017, would be a volcanic eruption.

On that day, in the midst of the province’s record-breaking wildfire season, the heat from four fires triggered huge thunderstorms that sent smoke soaring into the stratosphere, eventually spreading through the entire Northern Hemisphere.

It was the biggest so-called pyrocumulonimbus event ever observed, according to David Peterson, a meteorologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, Calif.

Wildfire forecasts predict hot, dry conditions in B.C. this year

[dohboi]

Worsening Prairie Fires: Exceptional Central Heat and Drought Spurs More Oklahoma Blazes

https://robertscribbler.com/2018/05/01/ ... ma-blazes/

Today, as with many recent days, Oklahoma is experiencing hot, dry, critical fire hazard conditions. And over the past month, historically exceptional drought and hotter than normal weather have spurred a spate of very severe and seemingly unrelenting wildfires across the state...

...Though spring wildfires do occur across Oklahoma and parts of the plains states, the trend has been for an increasing large fire incidence. This trend, in turn, has been driven by human-caused climate change. For as the U.S. has warmed, the rate of evaporation from soils, vegetation and lakes has increased. This higher rate of moisture loss both intensifies drought and spikes fire risk.

Warming and worsening drought has been a particularly acute set of affairs for Central and Western states.

The number of weeks when large fires are a risk has increased from 50 to 600 percent for most of these regions.

In other words, if it seems like there are more large fires, it’s because there are. And what we see now are spring prairie fires that are far more intense than they were in the past.

[dohboi]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1IY054

Raging wildfire forces New Mexico village to evacuate

A wildfire, stoked by low humidity and high temperatures, raged on Saturday in northern New Mexico, forcing residents in a remote community to flee their homes, fire officials said.

The so-called Ute Park Fire in Colfax County, New Mexico was zero percent contained after it doubled in size to more than 16,000 acres on Friday near Cimarron, a town of about 1,100 people

More here: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/02/us/wildf ... index.html

[dohboi]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/03/us/west- ... index.html

California is also ablaze!

[jedrider]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/03/us/west-coast-wildfires/index.html
California is also ablaze!

This is NOT normal or, at least, it didn't use to be normal. I am planning an annual camping trip to the same spot I've been going to for 20 years now. It's a little disconcerting that I think I need to learn the roads well now as I understand that there are only two access roads and I am only familiar with one. The rest is forest and there is already one fire burning there according to the CalFire map. When I visited Napa valley late last year, right before their big fires, it was clear that vegetation was extremely dry. I think the West has a fire problem that's not going away. I've found this following article on surviving a forest fire:

Survival strategies to help you escape a forest fire
https://scoutingmagazine.org/2016/04/survival-strategies-help-escape-forest-fire/

Fortunately, there's a lake there.

[dohboi]

Thanks for some on-the-ground perspective on these. Is anyone else in the area having to plan around these fires and potential fires?

Meanwhile:

Wildfires Erupt in the Southwest U.S.
https://weatheroptics.net/wildfires-eru ... southwest/

Los Angeles, California, June 3: “As of noon, Acton has already soared to 98 degrees with RH of 8%. Elevated fire weather concerns across interior sections today due to hot and dry conditions coupled with gusty onshore winds. #LAWeather #cawx #LAheat #Socal”
https://mobile.twitter.com/NWSLosAngele ... 9584300032

"The combination of deepening #drought and the carryover of fine fuels from 2017 is expected to lead to a continuance of Above Normal Significant Large Fire Potential across western portions of the Four Corners Region and Southern #California during June" (link: http://bit.ly/2mu6g6I )
https://twitter.com/EdJoyce/status/1003357194388045825

[jedrider]

I forgot to add that I think the wind kicks up much more frequently now and for longer periods. It's like an instability of a climate system fighting itself. I wonder how this is explained meterologically?

Well, my first search has yielded this, which is interesting in that this has been a predictable response:

"What we think is going on is that land temperatures are increasing at a faster rate than the ocean temperatures, and this thermal gradient between the land and the ocean is driving increased winds," Snyder said.

https://news.ucsc.edu/2008/12/2644.html

[dohboi]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1J60W9

Colorado wildfire doubles in size, thousands evacuated

This article has a map:

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/l ... ooperating

[dohboi]

416 Firefighters celebrating the coming of rain near Durango:



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

[Plantagenet]

There are two fires burning here in central Alaska that are both bigger then the Colorado fire.

crews-working-two-large-wildfires-south-of-manley-hot-springs

The smoke was almost unbearable for a while, so I went and camped in Denali National Park for 3 days, and now that I'm back the wind has shifted and the smoke isn't so bad now..........

[jedrider]

Gov. Brown declares state of emergency as Pawnee Fire rage
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Pawnee-Fire-grows-by-500-acres-overnight-600-13023638.php

Firefighters still haven’t contained the wildfire, which Cal Fire said is being driven by relatively low humidity, erratic winds and above normal temperatures.

Yes, May was the warmest on record and June may not be close behind.

The biggest change I've noticed is "erratic winds", pretty much constant.

Last year's Napa Valley fires in October was fueled by very strong winds that knocked down tree limbs onto power cables.

A prediction of global warming from years ago.

[dohboi]

The West is burning, and it’s barely July

The heat is breaking temperature records coast-to-coast, drought covers half of the country, and — sure enough — wildfires are already enveloping the West. More than 30 large fires are burning in 12 states right now.

In Utah, dozens of homes have been destroyed and hundreds more are threatened from a largely out-of-control blaze in the eastern part of the state. In Colorado, some of the largest fires in state history have already drawn comparisons to the nightmare fire seasons of 1988 and 2002.

And then there’s California, where the “County fire” began on Saturday near Sacramento and quickly spread out of control, threatening hundreds of homes and growing at a rate of 1,000 football fields an hour. It’s the latest megafire in a state still recovering from the most damaging wildfire season in history.

Wildfires across California have burned more than twice the five-year average so far this year, as of July 1. The County fire alone has burned 70,000 acres — twice the size of San Francisco and more than every other fire in the state this year combined. Over the weekend, smoke and ash from the fire drifted over the Bay Area, reminding residents of last year’s horrific blazes and partially blocking out the sun...

https://grist.org/article/the-west-is-b ... rely-july/

[onlooker]

Wildfires are tearing across California, Colorado, New Mexico and other Western states this week, chewing up bone-dry mountainsides, scorching buildings and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate from their homes. The message across the West — just as plans for July 4 fireworks and camping trips get underway — is that after a record-breaking 2017 fire season, 2018 is likely to be brutal, too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/us/f ... orado.html

[Tuike]

Sweden battles forest fires north of Stockholm -bbc
Video in link.

[dohboi]

Wildfires In The U.S. Are Getting Bigger

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wi ... ng-bigger/

"That dichotomy — fewer fires, more land ablaze — is in keeping with long-standing trends. Since 1985, the trend in the number of wildfires hasn’t changed much, but the trend for total acreage burned has gone up and up and up. So what gives? Experts say there’s no single cause in the midst of all that smoke. Instead, the trend is probably related to the interaction of changing climate, short-term weather patterns and a philosophical shift in how we manage both forests and fires."
...
"Fire managers began to change their philosophy and allow some fires to burn in a more natural way in the 1970s.... Over the last 15 or 20 years, that’s become more of the norm. In the past, every little fire that started got put out before it burned much land. Today, one fire might be allowed to eat up much more built-up kindling... It’s better to let the fire burn more acreage than risk lives unnecessarily.

But transitioning to a more natural sort of fire management isn’t necessarily going to return the forests to a past state of balance with the blaze, Collins warned. Decades of extreme fire prevention have altered forest adaptation. Areas that burn severely today might never grow back the same way. “You can’t just turn the switch back on,” he said. “We might be turning [some forests] into shrublands.”

[dohboi]

More on the situation Tuike referenced above:

Wildfires rage in Arctic Circle as Sweden calls for help

Sweden worst hit as hot, dry summer sparks unusual number of fires, with at least 11 in the far north

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -wildfires

Meanwhile:

New evacuations ordered as fire raging near Yosemite National Park grows to 12,525 acres

A wildfire burning outside Yosemite National Park continued its push south toward nearby rural communities as hundreds of firefighters flooded into the area Tuesday.

Amid high temperatures, low humidity and light winds, the Ferguson fire has scorched 12,525 acres south of Highway 140 west of the park and was 5% contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

The blaze has killed one firefighter and is threatening more than 100 homes as it marches southeast along a fork of the Merced River toward Jerseydale, Mariposa Pines and Yosemite West, Cal Fire said...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

[dohboi]