Category Archives: Forest Fires

Anglet, France – A dramatic forest fire in the middle of a French coastal resort was contained early Friday after destroying nearly a dozen homes and forcing around 100 people to evacuate overnight, officials said. The blaze erupted late Thursday in the Chiberta forest park at Anglet in southwest France, whose beaches just north of Biarritz draw surfers from around the world. Soaring temperatures that reached nearly 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) fanned the flames that burned 165 hectares (400 acres) in total. …11 homes were destroyed and five more rendered uninhabitable …Residents described an inferno that spread quickly through the closely packed pine trees, which like much of France’s Basque Country had seen extremely dry conditions this summer. …The blaze was the latest of several that erupted in southern and central France this week, kicking off the annual fire season which officials warn could be worsened by the drought and dry heat.

Nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia’s devastating bushfire season of 2019 and 2020, according to scientists who have revealed for the first time the scale of the impact on the country’s native wildlife.  The Guardian has learned that an estimated 143 million mammals, 180 million birds, 51 million frogs and a staggering 2.5 billion reptiles were affected by the fires that burned across the continent. Not all the animals would have been killed by the flames or heat, but scientists say the prospects of survival for those that had withstood the initial impact was “probably not that great” due to the starvation, dehydration and predation by feral animals – mostly cats – that followed.  An interim report based on work by 10 scientists from five institutions, commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), suggests the toll from the fires goes much further than an earlier estimate of more than 1 billion animals killed.

Portugal will go on high alert as more than 850 firefighters struggle to put out a fire sweeping across part of the country’s central region on Sunday, with strong winds and high temperatures complicating efforts to tackle the blaze. The wildfire has been raging in the municipality of Oleiros since Saturday afternoon… and has already forced the precautionary evacuation of a number of people. A 21-year-old firefighter died in a road accident on Saturday evening while fighting the fire and seven others were injured, including one civilian. …Portugal’s Internal Affairs Minister Eduardo Cabrita said it could take firefighters until Tuesday or Wednesday to bring the wildfire under control. …One of the root causes of its frequent wildfires is that parts of the country’s interior are deserted as people have left to live in cities or abroad, and the job of clearing trees and bushes is neglected, creating a fire risk.

Firefighters are battling out of control forest fires in Greece. Locals and tourists have been evacuated as fires continue to rage near the city of Corinth in the eastern Peloponnese for a second day. The city’s mayor says the flames are out of control and has called for a state of emergency to be declared in the region. More than 260 firefighters are currently tackling the blaze, with 10 helicopters and 10 planes assisting. “Despite the fact that almost all the aerial firefighting equipment is operating in the area, the situation is not under control,” Mayor Vassilis Nanopoulos told local media. No injuries or fatalities have been reported yet.

SIBERIA — As massive wildfires continue to engulf swathes of Siberia, environmentalists warn that the blazes could become the worst in Russia’s history and exacerbate global climate change. According to the Russian Federal Agency of Forestry, the total area of forest fires in Russia covered an area of 1.62 million hectares as of Monday. Siberia’s wildfires in 2020 so far have burned an area larger than the size of Greece, Greenpeace Russia said. A Greenpeace photographer managed to capture photos of the natural disaster in the Krasnoyarsk region last week

ATHENS  – Greek firefighters are battling to control a large forest fire fanned by strong winds near the seaside village of Kechries in the eastern Peloponnese, fire brigade officials said on Wednesday. Authorities said they had been forced to evacuate a residential settlement as the blaze, burning through pine trees, came close to a military camp where explosives were stored. Thick dark smoke clouded the area, with the front of the blaze moving south in very windy conditions. No damage to property or injuries had been reported. “The blaze is fanned by strong winds, we have recommended the evacuation of three settlements. So far there are no injuries or damage to homes,” a fire brigade official said. …More than 70 firefighters were battling the blaze, assisted by five helicopters and two planes, with volunteers also helping.

Iran has been ravaged by hundreds wildfires spreading across thousands of acres since May 22. The phenomenon is not entirely new but, the number of fires have increased. The fires have raised questions and concerns as to whether they were caused by accident or arson. The Arasbaran forest in northwestern Iran was the latest to catch fire in early July. The Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Bushehr provinces have also been dealing with forest fires in the past few months, while fires in the Khuzestan, Lorestan, and Ilam provinces in June not only destroyed forests, but acres of vegetation, pastureland, and grassland. …According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Masoud Mansour, 90 percent of the fires were caused unintentionally by human error.

Wildfires in Russia have burned across an area larger than the size of Greece so far in 2020, Greenpeace Russia said as it criticized the authorities of inaction. Using satellite data, Greenpeace Russia estimated that 19 million hectares (47 million acres) burned across Russia’s forests, steppes and fields from January to mid-July. The country of Greece, by comparison, is more than 13 million hectares in size. …Russia’s Federal Forestry Agency has identified 10.1 million hectares of wildfires raging across the country since the start of the year. More than half of the blazes were located in forests and over 90% burned in Siberia and the Russian Far East, it said. Russian officials said Monday that more than 9,000 fires have destroyed 1.2 million hectares of forests.

Russian firefighters have been seeding clouds to bring down rain over wildfires raging in Siberia, authorities say. The Russian forestry agency says active work is underway to battle 158 forest fires covering 46,261 hectares as of Friday. Just a few days ago, that area was more than three times larger. Firefighters have used planes to fire chemicals into the clouds above fires in northern, remote parts of the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Siberia, the agency says. Sweltering heat and dry weather have helped wildfires spread across the region and into the boreal forest and tundra that blanket northern Russia. Environmental group Greenpeace, which monitors the spread of wildfires in Russia, confirmed rain had helped reduce fires in northern Siberia but that others had appeared in the south near the big regional cities of Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk.

Forest fires in eastern Ukraine that have killed five people and left dozens homeless are being brought under control by firefighters, officials said on Wednesday. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the situation was improving and he had seen no new fires during a fly-over with President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior officials. The blaze began on Monday in Lugansk region and engulfed Smolyaninove, a village just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the front line of Ukraine’s war with Russia-backed separatists. More than 1,200 firefighters, rescue workers and National Guard are fighting fires in three locations, Avakov said. …More than 100 homes have been destroyed entirely in two villages, with dozens more damaged, according to the ministry. …The ministry said on Tuesday six people had died as a result of the fires, but revised the death toll down to five.

RUSSIA — Temperatures in Arctic Siberia soared to a record average for June amid a heat wave that is stoking some of the worst wildfires the region has ever known, European Union data showed on Tuesday. Global temperatures last month were on par with a 2019 record, and “exceptional warmth” was recorded over Arctic Siberia, the EU’s earth observation program Copernicus said, part of a trend scientists are calling a “warning cry.” Average temperatures in the region were more than 5 C above normal. …The Russian forestry agency said that as of July 6, there were 246 forest fires covering 140,073 hectares and an emergency situation has been declared in seven regions. Russian state TV footage this week showed planes dumping water near huge columns of white smoke.

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s third-largest province declared a state of emergency from Wednesday after identifying more than 700 fires, as the Southeast Asian nation braces for its annual fire season. The declaration comes as Indonesia scales back protection for some of the world’s most important tropical forests. The team that identifies fires and helps put them out has seen its budget halved due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, an environment ministry official told Reuters last month. The province of Central Kalimantan said the state of emergency will run until Sept. 28. The level of emergency is at the first ‘alert’ stage which calls for increased patrols and early extinguishing efforts.