Deadly blaze that killed four people and forced evacuation of 10 villages is now close to being under control
Lytton, British Columbia, broke successive Canadian heat records early this week, with temperatures peaking at 121 degrees on Tuesday. Then the fires swept in.
Wildfires have already begun to take hold across Washington in the wake of record heat both east and west of the Cascades. Responders are currently battling a 31-square-mile fire in Adams County, after getting sparked in the town of Lind on Sunday morning. The fast-moving brush fire has been threatening homes and vital infrastructure.
On Tuesday night, the state of Alaska saw thousands of lightning strikes. “Most of the 3,800 lightning strikes were concentrated in the Northwest Arctic,” said BLM Alaska Fire Service spokeswoman Beth Ipsen. There are several communities in close proximity to new fires.
Even school children are in firefighting brigades in some areas of Yakutia.
The blaze in forestry south of Loch Morlich near Aviemore has now been extinguished.
Dry spring conditions and strong winds are allowing a burn at the dump to grow near Pilot Point. Fire crews are dropping suppressant and 12 smokejumpers worry working the fire estimated at 250 acres as of Monday night.
The Alaska Division of Forestry deployed 12 smokejumpers on an estimated 100-acre wildfire burning near the village of Akiachak in southwest Alaska Tuesday afternoon to protect a fish camp and Native allotments surrounding the fire.
The Alaska Division of Forestry said the wildfire that is burning land near the village of Pilot Point in Southwest Alaska has grown to about 500 acres, but the village is safe from any immediate danger.
A wildfire alert is now in effect across roughly half of Iceland following weeks of dry weather and fires across the Southwest quadrant of the country.
Firefighters put out brush fires in Hafnarfjörður and Reykjavík May 9th, while police responded to several other reports of open flames.Weather has been unseasonably dry in Iceland’s capital area in recent weeks and in other parts of the country.
Omsk region reported ‘record high’ number of wildfires and cases of dry grass burning, that turn into wildfires this spring, with one day last week counting nearly a thousand new events a day. Omsk region emergency services said the number of wildfires is seven to ten times above the norm.
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.
Pillars of smoke were filmed over the areas hit by last summer’s wildfires despite the current long spell of extremely cold weather.
Burned area data show that there was an unusual amount of fire activity in the 2020 fire season in northern Siberia (north of 65 degrees). This fire activity was associated with severe summer drought that led to extreme fire behavior and long-duration fires.
The lengthy wildfire season follows a record-hot Arctic summer. People living in Yakutsk are waking up to heavy smog brought from the wildfires raging to the west, east and north; struggling to breathe and with head, eye and throat aches.
Russian weather officials and environmentalists have said climate change is a major factor behind the increase in fires.
Personnel from Spokane County Fire District 3 and the state Department of Natural Resources were working to contain the fires on Monday, while a record-breaking heat wave threatened to maintain ample supplies of dry air and fuel.
On Tuesday, August 4, paratroopers of Chukchi and Federal Aviation Protection stopped the spread of a large fire in the Bilibin district.
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.
All Topics
All Countries
Any Date
Apply