Will today's conflagrations change US wildfire policy?
As vast and fast wildfires continue to spread almost unprecedented destruction across America’s three Pacific states, fire scientists, meteorologists and journalists have begun comparing the conflagrations to one firestorm 110 years ago.
Pelosi ridiculed from left and right after saying ‘angry Mother Earth’ caused California wildfires
Top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi was bombarded with online mockery after saying that massive ongoing wildfires raging in California were the result of “Mother Earth” and her displeasure with humans.
Roaming Charges: Under Furious Skies
+ I’m writing this late on Thursday afternoon. The sky is the color of rust. Neil Young’s live rust. The sun is a crimson orb that occasionally bores through the enveloping pall, then recedes. We are under evacuation orders. The fires which have steadily gnawed their way toward us since Monday have reached the upper forks of our canyon outside of Oregon City. We’ve done a quick triage of our belongings. Stuffed the cars with clothes, diapers, food, photographs, books, a couple of small paintings by friends. So much stuff, accumulated over 4o years. What was it all for? There’s the smell of burning trees, cars, houses in the air. Even the evacuation center is now under evacuation.
A tale of two fires
Coast Range Radio’s interview with Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D. We discuss the new messaging guide - Incendiary Rhetoric: Climate Change, Wildfire, and Ecological Fire Management from Tim’s organization, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics & Ecology. To find the guide and to learn more visit their website, fusee.org.
A climate reckoning in fire-stricken California
SAN FRANCISCO — Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face.
As Fires Rage, California Must Stop Building in Burn Zones
These blazes have scorched millions of acres. They’ve destroyed homes, shut down freeways and forced massive evacuations. Californians are dying in these fires while thousands of first responders risk their lives to fight back the flames.
The Bear Fire ‘smoldered for weeks,’ then destroyed a town. Was Forest Service slow to fight it?
But earlier this year federal officials announced that because of the risk of COVID-19 to firefighting crews, the Forest Service would revert back to fighting every fire that ignited to try to keep them small, said Timothy Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter who’s the executive director of Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology. He said it didn’t matter. This year’s wildfire season left the Forest Service’s firefighting resources stretched so thin that they are having to “triage fires.” “There’s so much wildfire activity across the whole West Coast,” he said
‘Unprecedented’ Pacific Northwest fires burn hundreds of homes
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Winds gusting as high as 50 mph (80 kph) fanned dozens of catastrophic fires wildfires Wednesday across a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense fire activity because of the Pacific Northwest's cool and wet climate. Oregon's governor said hundreds of homes were destroyed.
Wildfires: Can we adapt to live with them?
This time last year, as Australia emerged from winter to spring, the first flames of the devastating season that has since become known as Black Summer, had already begun burning their way through areas of bushland.
Although at the time long-term drought had rendered the ground and vegetation across much of the country kindling dry, and though scientists were warning that conditions were ripe for danger, the scale of the inferno to come would have been hard to predict.
What’s an effective approach to preventing wildfires in Southern California?
“Fire is a powerful force of nature. We’re kind of in a situation of damned if we do and damned if we don’t do in terms of preventing and suppressing wildfires,” says Tim Ingalsbee, founder of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology.
North Texas Firefighter Killed Battling Northern California Blaze
North Texas Firefighter Killed Battling Northern California Blaze
Wildfire suppression efforts have gotten more aggressive, but is there an ecological cost?
But some conservationists believe that the current focus on fire suppression may be doing more harm than good. Tim Ingalsbee is with Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology. Ingalsbee, a former firefighter himself, says that aggressive wildfire suppression is a losing battle and it may be depriving forests and wildlife of the fires they need to thrive. “Making war on nature, we are damned if we lose for sure,” says Ingalsbee. “And we’re quite damned if we win because it will be a very different planet if we try to rob ecosystems of the fire they need to maintain their ecological integrity.”
California fires: What to expect in the coming months
Rains usually don’t come until November and after a dry winter, fire crews are bracing for more fires