Second fatality was confirmed by forest fires in the Araucanía region

Se confirmó segunda víctima fatal por incendios forestales en la región de la Araucanía

CHILE – Según confirmó el Gobernador de Cautín, Mauricio Ojeda, la persona fallecida es un hombre de 80 años, quien murió en el hospital Hernán Henríquez Aravena de Temuco.

El hombre, al igual que el primer fallecido, era de la comuna de Cholchol.

Pese a que al encontrarlo se le pudo dar atención médica, no logró sobrevivir a las lesiones provocadas por el fuego.

La misma autoridad confirmó que en la zona se sumó al trabajo de combatir los incendios 21 aeronaves y 10 brigadas completas del ejército.

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Average size of wildfires continued to increase in 2018

02 February 2019

Published by https://wildfiretoday.com/

USA – The number of acres burned and the total number of fires decreased in 2018 from 2017

1985-2018 wildfires average size decade

While the number of wildfires and the total acres burned both declined in 2018 the average size continued to increase. The number of wildfires has been trending down since at least 1985 and the average size has been increasing. There are variations in the number of acres burned from year to year roughly in five to six-year cycles, but in the late 1980s the average size of a wildfire in the U.S. was 30 acres. That number has increased every decade since, bringing the average for this decade (to date) up to 101 acres.

The number of acres burned and the total number of fires decreased in 2018 from 2017 by 13 and 22 percent respectively, while the acres burned was sixth highest since records have been kept.

If the five to six-year cycle for burned acres that we noticed in the data is real, and continues, we could expect lower numbers for the next three to four years beginning in 2019 compared to 2017 and 2018.

The raw data we used to construct these charts is from the National Interagency Fire Center, current as of December 21, 2018. The historical data for Alaska before 1990 which we used to determine the numbers for the other 49 states is from a paper published by the University of Alaska.

Wildfire Acres Burned 1985-2018

1985-2018 wildfires total number

1985-2018 wildfires average size

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As California wildfires grew, so did PG&E lobbying spending

02 February 2019

Published by https://www.sanluisobispo.com/

USA – An end-of-the-year bump put PG&E among the top lobbying spenders of the last legislative session, according to disclosures filed Thursday.

The utility spent $1.3 million on lobbying from October through December, bringing its total for the 2017-2018 session to $11.8 million, according to the disclosures. About $820,000 was dedicated to wildfire preparedness and response, according to a public note PG&E included with the filing.

Only the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron spent more on lobbying over the last two years.

Pacific Gas and Electric’s lobbying spending climbed steadily over the session, spiking last summer as the utility sought to minimize its liability for 2017 wildfires sparked by its equipment in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties. For comparison, the utility spent $2.5 million over the 2015-2016 session.

The results of the increased spending were mixed. Senate Bill 901, signed into law in September, made it easier for utilities to pass fire liability costs on to customers but stopped short of everything PG&E wanted. The company was pushing for a change to California’s “inverse condemnation” law, under which a utility is responsible for compensating property owners for damage caused by its equipment even in cases where the utility hasn’t been proved negligent.

The bill was meant in part to help PG&E avoid filing for bankruptcy, which it did this week. The company’s equipment is a suspect in the investigation over what caused the November Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and destroyed 13,000 homes. The utility has estimated its wildfire liabilities could total $30 billion. SB 901 doesn’t cover 2018 fires.

A federal judge in San Francisco this week questioned PG&E’s commitment to safety, suggesting the utility should have spent more money removing trees near its lines and improving equipment and less money paying dividends to shareholders.

PG&E has said climate change is to blame, not inattention to safety. Credit rating agencies cited climate change — along with California’s inverse condemnation law — in recent credit downgrades not only of PG&E but of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

“The threat of climate-driven wildfires is real and growing here in California,” PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said Friday. “In 2018 we saw more devastating and deadly wildfires in our state and this is expected to get worse.”

“While legislation that was adopted last year addresses many urgent needs, we must continue to work together to ensure ongoing investment in climate resiliency and clean energy and to combat this devastating threat that extreme weather and climate change impose to our state’s shared energy future,” Paulo said.



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February (All News)

Recent Media Highlights on Fire, Policies, and Politics

February 2019

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How badly did the government shutdown harm wildfire prep? Democrats want answers

01 February 2019

Published by https://www.mercedsunstar.com/

USA – WASHINGTON – In the wake of a deadly fire season, California lawmakers want to know how much the 35-day government shutdown hindered the U.S. Forest Service’s preparation for the next big wildfire.

They’re pressing President Donald Trump’s administration to account for how much forest management, firefighter training and federal contract work was delayed or canceled because of the shutdown. They also want to know what is being done to make up for lost time.

A majority of the California delegation is demanding answers to that question in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue sent Friday. The 42 lawmakers who signed the letter are all Democrats.

“Given the nearly year-round threat of fire, the winter months are critical for forest managers to be able to get a head start on clearing dead and dry fuels,” they wrote. “Such preparation can be the difference between a contained fire and a conflagration that leaves thousands homeless and countless business destroyed.”

About 30,000 federal employees are in involved in fire suppression. The shutdown exempted firefighters, but it halted firefighter training. It also prevented agencies from awarding work to contractors that clear brush and carry out prescribed burns on federal land.
Separately, the Democratic-controlled House Agriculture Committee also plans to investigate whether the shutdown harmed preparations for the coming western wildfire season, said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.

“We’re trying to make an assessment of how much was lost,” Costa said. “We’ve heard different reports of the 35 days that were lost and I think we have to determine how much ground we have to make up to try to suggest to the Secretary of Agriculture how to deal with the potential impacts.”

“We always seem to be playing catch up, and this just further exacerbates what has always been a difficult situation in managing our forests,” he added.

Stanton Florea, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in California, said they currently can’t quantify what was lost.

“We’re asking our 18 national forests that we manage in California to get back to us next week in terms of reassessing priorities and what we can accomplish for the remainder of this fiscal year,” Florea said.

President Donald Trump was critical of forest management efforts in California during the shutdown, tweeting Jan. 9 that he would withhold federal money meant to help victims unless California officials “get their act together.” The shutdown was triggered in December over a disagreement between Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall.

Six of the 10 most damaging wildfires in California history took place in the last two years, including the Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 86 people in November. The state boosted its spending on wildfire prevention by hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year, with new Gov. Gavin Newsom pledging even more resources.

The letter from the California delegation asks Perdue to give an accounting of the following losses on wildfire prevention efforts during the shutdown:

  • The estimated number of acres of hazardous fuels in California that should have been cleared during the period of the shutdown
  • Any changes to the hiring process for California-based firefighting personnel due the shutdown and a status update on 2019 hiring efforts
  • The extent of activities that should have been performed by contractors who were furloughed
  • Any and all wildfire-related training activities that were delayed or canceled
  • The steps the Department is undertaking to make up for the lost time to ensure that preparedness is not harmed and any associated costs with such accelerated efforts

They did not provide a deadline for the answers to their questions.

Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Oroville, who did not sign the letter and whose district was devastated by the Camp Fire, told McClatchy he thought forest management losses were “probably minimal” since there had been wet weather and snow in the northern half of California during the shutdown period, which isn’t conducive to certain types of forest management.

“It shouldn’t be as bad as perhaps projected. We need to do the hustle on this a lot anyway, we have inventory we need to catch up on,” LaMalfa said. “That’s going to require not just what would’ve been done during this period, but also the work we need to be doing to boost up the speed of the U.S. Forest Service and the USDA pushes them to do it.”

Read more here: https://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/state/california/article225359380.html#storylink=cpy
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Tasmania’s fire disaster revealed in satellite images showing the extent of the damage

01 February 2019

Published by https://www.abc.net.au/

AUSTRALIA – For weeks, bushfires have been ravaging Tasmania.

Almost every day more warnings spring up, new areas are on alert.

It’s easy to get warning fatigue, and, with only a handful or properties impacted so far, dismiss the fires as all bark and no bite.

But satellite images reveal the scale of the destruction so far.

The Gell River blaze, in the state’s south-west, was the first to start, ignited by a dry lightning strike in late December.

“It seems really like ancient history,” professor of pyrogeography and fire service at the University of Tasmania David Bowman said.

“It started at the end of last year and escalated in early January, so we’re looking at a fire situation that’s now gone for a full calendar month.”

Images taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite on January 3 show what seems, relative to the lakes around it, like a small blackened patch of wilderness.

Infrared emissions highlighted in bright orange show active fire fronts and hotspots.

By January 8, that small blackened area had morphed.

The Gell River fire is still burning, and this week destroyed Churchill’s Hut — a historic trapper’s shed named after Elias Churchill, who captured the last Tasmanian tiger.

This image, captured on January 30, shows a more recent footprint, and the smoke it’s still sending billowing over nearby towns.

The Gell River blaze would have been enough for firefighters to contend with.

Already, it was proving challenging to curtail.

Specialist remote-area firefighters were flown in to try to contain the blaze, which was settling into rugged, inaccessible terrain.

But a series of lightning storms set off another chain. When the storms hit in mid-January, Tasmanians gawked at them with a nervous curiosity.

They shared videos and photos to social media, showing lightning flashes peppering the sky.

And that could have been it, if the state wasn’t suffering through its driest January on record.

“Usually dry lightning isn’t a significant factor in starting bushfires because the vegetation was traditionally too moist,” Professor Bowman said.

“But certainly the coupling of dry lightning with dry vegetation has created an increase in both the number and the area burned.”

New fires sprung up across the state, notably on the Central Plateau, and in the south near the Tahune forest.

“If you have a more normal bushfire situation, it’s just the one fire,” Professor Bowman said.

“There are multiple major fire events occurring simultaneously, which is extremely challenging for firefighters and fire managers because of the requirement to spread resources and make very difficult prioritising decisions.”

On January 20, the Central Plateau fire burning near Great Lake was already showing its might.

Aggressive and ready to strike, it claimed one property — the Skittle Ball Plains Homestead, a fishing retreat — on January 22.

By January 28 it seemed to have grown in every direction, destroying the wilderness around it.

“This is definitely a historic event, it’s unprecedented,” Professor Bowman said.

“The area burnt is very substantial, I can barely keep up with the numbers.”

This week the fire service did put a number on it — 187,000 hectares.

At the same time as the Central Plateau fire ramped up, the Tahune fire was also burning out of control.

Of all the fires burning across Tasmania, this one has caused the most displacement, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate from communities in the Huon Valley south of Hobart.

Since last week, firefighters have issued almost daily warnings to residents, cautioning that only those prepared to defend their properties should stay behind.

A satellite image taken on January 30 shows how the fire, having burnt through more than 56,000 hectares, was still sending smoke over towns to its east.

“This fire event is totally natural in one sense because it started by lightning,” Professor Bowman said.

“There really isn’t any significant rain on the horizon, and that’s a real problem because this week is classically the peak fire season.

“We can all remember the 7th February 1967 was the greatest historical fire crisis in Tasmanian history, and it was also the same day for Black Saturday, and we haven’t even reached those first two weeks of February.

“Each day that we’re not getting rain is a ratchet which means the intensity of the fires will increase, and the scale of the fires will increase.

“We’re using the term ‘fire crisis’ and that’s not an exaggeration.”

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