One spark was all it took. The driver of the forest harvester was working a logging site at Renko in Kanta-Häme. The grapple of the machine hit a stone, throwing a spark that set the underbrush ablaze.
Firefighters dealt with about 20 blazes on Sunday alone, as dry conditions and strong winds heighten risks of forest and brush fires getting out of control.
The blaze in forestry south of Loch Morlich near Aviemore has now been extinguished.
Firefighters extinguished fires on Benbecula and Harris as they warn of extreme risk. SFRS said the fires had broken out in vegetation that had died off since last year and then been dried out by frost and low temperatures.
Authorities say at least seven people have been killed after a “superfog” of smoke from south Louisiana marsh fires and dense fog caused multiple massive car crashes involving 158 vehicles.
Air tankers and smokejumpers responded to the fire, which the division said Thursday is no longer a threat.The tanker dumped retardant to help contain the fire, which had spread south, scorching about five acres of tundra. Much of Southwest and Southcentral Alaska is under a red flag warning because of hot, dry and windy conditions.
The Tustumena Lake fire in Alaska is 25% contained, with efforts including smokejumpers and over 56,000 gallons of water deployed to combat the 35-acre blaze.
A four-day heatwave across western Europe that killed seven people began to ease slightly on Sunday, as temperature alerts were cut back and wildfires slowly brought under control.
Active fires in northeastern Ontario and eastern Manitoba are expected to send smoke across northern Quebec today and Wednesday, Environment Canada said in a special air quality statement posted for each of the region’s 14 communities.
The temperature in Verkhoyansk hit 38 degrees Celsius on Saturday, according to Pogoda i Klimat, a website that compiles Russian meteorological data.
Wildfires across the western United States and Canada have put millions of people under air quality alerts, as thousands of firefighters battle the flames.
It’s not often that Southcentral Alaska residents wake to thunder in the middle of the night. But what forecasters are calling an unusual storm moved from the Talkeetna Mountains into the Matanuska Valley and then Anchorage and south to the Kenai Peninsula from Wednesday night into Thursday morning. At least one lightning-caused structure fire was reported.
“It’s been hot, it’s been dry, and it’s been windy. And those winds gusts of 20 miles per hour, it’s kind of funneled through the Andreafsky River drainage,” said Beth Ipsen. Federal entities sent in more firefighters this week, and some residents are thinking about preparing their go-bags.
Crews continue to work a 13-hectare blaze about 40 kilometres northwest of Haines Junction. The risk of wildfire is now considered 'extreme' in many parts of the territory.
Lytton, British Columbia, broke successive Canadian heat records early this week, with temperatures peaking at 121 degrees on Tuesday. Then the fires swept in.
A haze visible through Southcentral Alaska on Wednesday was caused by smoke from fires burning in Siberia that began flowing into Alaska in early July.
A smoke respite room has been set up at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. The Chandler Room on the first floor will be open 24 hours a day until further notice.
It’s not dangerous at this point to drive on the Sterling Highway, though smoke may reduce visibility.
Two villages along the Lower Yukon River have begun evacuating their most vulnerable residents from a tundra fire.The fire late Thursday was burning less than eight miles from St Mary’s and nearby Pitkas Point, and wind continues spreading the flames closer to the villages with a combined population of over 700 people. Yute Commuter Service is sending all its planes to St. Mary’s to evacuate residents, and Grant Aviation is prepared to assist.
Mills in the heart of Canada's timber industry have fallen quieter this winter as wildfires and infestations made worse by climate change have made vast tracts of once valuable forest into barren stands of dead trees.
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